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CALIFORNIA 
SAN  CIIE63 


IH£  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  DIEGO 

LA  JOLLA.  CALIFORNIA 

OUR   REVENUE  SYSTEM 


AND 


THE   CIVIL  SERVICE. 


SHALL  THEY  BE  REFORMED? 


ABRAHAM  L.  EARLE. 


NEW    YORK: 

rUBLIRHED    FOR 

The  New  York  Free  Trade  Club, 

BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS, 

182  Fifth  Ave. 

1878. 


NOTE. 

The  first  edition  of  this  pamphlet  was  issued  in 
1871.  Since  then  five  editions  have  been  published. 
With  some  revisions,  and  with  a  few  pages  addition 
to  the  matter,  the  seventh  year  of  its  existence  is  em- 
phasized by  the  publication  of  the  seventh  thousand, 
together  with  an  introductory  by  Prof.  W.  G.  Sum- 
ner. 

March;  1878. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


n  r- 


The  Tariff  System  has  long  been  an  impediment 
to  our  National  prosperity,  and  a  most  fruitful  source 
of  sectional  strife.  It  has  been  perverted  from  the 
purpose  for  which  it  was  adopted — to  furnish  reve- 
nue; and  has  become  a  most  corrupt  and  formida- 
ble obstacle  to  the  pursuit  of  useful  and  honorable 
enterprise. 

The  Custom  House  and  Internal  Revenue  System 
is  rapidly  increasing  and  concentrating  patronage  and 
power  under  the  control  of  the  Federal  Government. 
These  are  already  gigantic  in  proportions,  corrupt  in 
character,  and  most  dangerous  to  our  liberties.  To 
wield  this  patronage  and  this  power  is,  more  than 
all  things  besides,  the  stimulus  for  party  supremacy, 
but  it  is  the  very  element  which  no  party  can  safely 
be  trusted  to  control. 

The  Federal  Constitution  provides  for  Direct  Tax- 
ation by  apportionment  of  Government  expenses 
among  the  several  States  according  to  population 
and  representation.  Taxes  so  apportioned  may  be 
collected  through  the  agency  of  the  respective  States 
by  whatever  method  they  may  severally  prefer.  In 
this  way  the  services  of  thousands  of  federal  office- 
holders will  be  dispensed  with,  thus  effecting  a  com- 
plete reform  in  these  departments  and  preparing  the 
way  for  thorough  purification  in  other  departments 
Df  Government.  (3) 


PREFACE. 


It  seems  to  me  that  the  fooh'shest  thing  free-traders 
can  now  do  is  to  fall  to  quarreling  with  each  other 
about  how  much  free  trade  they  want.  For  my  part 
I  want  all  the  free  trade  I  can  get.  I  am  not  afraid 
of  too  much.  The  case  is  such  that  any  and  all  who 
want  tariff  reform  can  join  and  push  on  with  all  the 
strength  they  can  muster.  They  will  not  get  any 
more  than  the  most  timid  one  wants,  until  he  has 
had  full  time  to  reflect,  and  to  withdraw  if  he  wants 
to.  If  any  one  will  join  I  do  not  see  the  propriety  of 
warning  him  not  to  fight  too  hard,  or  not  to  believe  in 
the  cause  too  much.  The  methods  of  a  popular  agita- 
tion are  not  those  of  an  academical  discussion.  The 
allies  who  can  be  most  profitably  dispensed  with,  in  a 
popular  discussion,  are  those  who  only  get  in  the  way. 

I  have  consented  to  write  a  preface  to  this  book, 

not  because  I  want  to  help  to  propagate  the  positive 

views  contained  in  it ;  I  leave  them  to  stand  on  their 

own  merits.     If  I  were  to  criticise  them,  I  should  have 

to   write    another    book.     It   may  suffice  to  say  that 

I  hold  the  experience  of  the  United  States,  in  their 

iaternal  relations,  to  be  a  complete  demonstration  that 

the  best  arrangement  of  trade  and  industry  for  the 

i 


11  PREFACE. 

whole  world  would  be  absolute  freedom  of  exchange, 
.each  State  providing  by  internal  taxation  for  the  sup- 
port of  law,  order,  security,  and  civil  institutions 
within  its  own  borders.  All  taxes  on  commodities  are 
taxes  on  labor.  The  notion  of  taxing  luxuries  only, 
or  chiefly,  is  illusory.  If  taxes  fell  only  on  the  luxu- 
ries of  the  rich  they  would  produce  little  revenue. 
"  Luxury "  is  a  term  without  a  definition.  Such 
terms  always  produce  confusion  in  thought.  The 
articles  which  produced  the  largest  revenue  in  1877 
were  the  followincr: 


Silk  and  mfs. 
of 


Consumption. 


Averasre  duty    „ 
on  dutiable.  I  Re^-e""^- 


Sugar.. 


Wool     and 
mfe.  of 


§28,400,000  1 58.85  per  cent.  $12,800,000 

2.36    cts.    perj 

1,486,000,000  lbs.  lb.,    equal   toL 
I  $71,000,000  47-7     psr    ct.  ]  ^^  ■" 

{_  ad  valorem 


$33,400,000 


60.53  per  cent.  $20,200,000 


Consumption 

per  capita.* 


61.22  CLS. 

31.87  lbs. 
$1-54 


71.77  cts. 


Dutj-  per 
capita. 


27.46  ct.s. 
73.65  cts. 

43.45  cts. 


*  Population  estimated  by  the  Bureau  of  Statistics,  46,600,000. 

These  three  articles  produced,  in  a  year  of  great 
depression,  $67,300,000,  or  more  than  half  the  total 
customs  revenue.  They  are  all  heavily  protective,  and 
cost  the  people  in  contributions  to  "  home  producers  " 
more  than  the  other  half  of  the  revenue.  The  figures 
show  that  these  articles,  if  luxuries  at  all,'  are  luxuries 
of  the  poor  in  this  country.  The  first  luxury  towards 
which  "  the  poor  "  reach  out,  when  their  circumstances 
rise,  is  food  and  drink,  and  the  next  is  female  ap- 
parel.    Tea  and  coffee  bore  no  revenue. 


PREFACE. 


Ill 


Coffee. 
Tea.... 


Consumption. 


{332,000,000  lbs. 
553,600,000 
I  58,900,000  lbs. 
($16,000,000 


Do.  per  capita. 


7.12  lbs.  ) 

$1.15  ) 

1.26  lbs.  1 

34-3  cts.  I 


Revenue  per  capita. 


3    cts.   per  lb.  I  .  ,    .. 

would     yield  [$9.9°o.°oo  or  21.36  cts. 

15  cts.  per  lb.  i  ,0  o  o       . 

would  yield     \  «8,8oo,ooo  or  18.9  cts. 


Spirits,  wines,  and  beer  produced  $5,900,000,  or 
12.77  cts.  per  head  ;  tobacco  produced  $4,300,000  or 
9.22  cts.  per  head.  These  latter  articles  were  under  a 
heavy  excise  tax,  so  that  they  were  not  protected, 
or  but  little  protected,  and  the  consumption  of  home 
commodities  produced  revenue. 

EXCISE. 
Revenue.  Per  capita. 

Spirits $57,400,000 $1.23 

Tobacco 41,100,000 .SS 

Fermented  Liquors..     9,400,000 .20 

107,900,000 
Out  of  a  total  of 118,900,000 

Thus  we  have  a  large  consumption  of  articles  of 
food  and  drink,  and  of  tobacco,  per  capita,  and 
although  it  has  declined  somewhat  during  the  hard 
times,  the  figures  show  that  the  vast  mass  of  the 
people  are  suffering  no  "distress."  After  these 
"luxuries"  come  the  luxuries  of  dress,  represented 
under  silk  and  wool,  for  by  far  the  heaviest  items 
under  this  latter  head  are  women's  dress  goods  (con- 
sumption $14.1  m.,"^  revenue  $9.4  m.),  and  wool  and 
worsted  cloths  (consumption  $5.7  m.,  revenue  $3.9 
m.).    The  taxes  on  manufactures  of  flax,  hemp,  cot- 

*  $14.1  m.  =  $14,100,000. 


IV  PREFACE. 

ton,  iron,  steel,  leather,  copper,  lead,  tin,  and  wood, 
also  all  enter  into  the  cost  of  clothing,  furniture, 
houses,  and  all  other  first  necessaries  and  luxuries. 
The  customs  rev^enuc  of  the  United  States  unques- 
tionably is  paid  by  labor  in  the  popular  sense  of  that 
term,  that  is,  by  unskilled  laborers,  farmers,  and  me- 
chanics. 

A  strong  argument  may  be  made  for  such  taxes  in 
a  democracy.  No  man  ought  to  have  a  share  in  po- 
litical power  unless  he  also  bears  political  burdens.  It 
is  impossible  to  establish  a  sound  commonwealth 
on  any  other  principle.  Hitherto  the  people  of  the 
United  States  have  consisted  to  such  a  great  major- 
ity of  property  holders,  that  the  condition  was  prac- 
tically fulfilled,  although  theoretical  doctrines  were 
held  which  recognized  no  such  principle.  With  the 
filling  up  of  the  land,  new  circumstances  arise.  The 
great  cities  already  feel  the  unendurable  pressure  of 
a  state  of  things  in  which  some  people  have  the 
power  without  the  responsibility,  the  rights  without 
the  duties,  of  citizens.  They  pay  the  taxes  and  bear 
the  burdens  of  the  national  government,  and  they 
bear  a  great  part  of  the  local  taxation,  but  they  do 
not  know  it.  Hence  the  education  of  taxation  is  lost 
upon  them.  Direct  taxes  have  the  advantage  of 
bringing  home  to  every  one  just  what  the  state  costs 
him,  and  the  advantages  both  to  the  citizen  and  to 
the  state  are  very  great.  Taxes  on  labor  cut  off  the 
formation  of  capital  by  the  laboring  class,  the  aggre- 
gate of  whose  savings  constitutes,  both  politically 
and  economically,  a  fact  of  prime  importance.     It  is 


PREFACE.  V 

very  doubtful,  therefore,  whether  the  argument  in 
favor  of  taxes  on  commodities  in  a  democracy  will 
hold  good. 

Local  taxation  takes  the  form  generally  known  as 
direct,  and  it  is  unquestionably  heavy.  It  is  laid 
without  system,  or  knowledge,  by  incompetent  and 
ever-changing  boards,  and  it  forms  a  heavy  burden 
on  property  owners,  and  capitalists.  It  is  in  their 
power  to  redress  themselves  whenever  they  will  spend 
the  necessary  energy.  They  and  all  the  rest  of  the  peo- 
ple are  robbed  over  and  over  again  by  the  protective 
system  which  clings  to  indirect  taxation.  It  would  be 
a  great  gain  to  all,  and  in  every  point  of  view,  to 
substitute  an  income  tax  of  fifty  millions  for  a  large 
part  of  the  tariff  system.  In  favoring  an  income  tax, 
however,  I  must  be  understood  to  do  so  on  three  con- 
ditions, under  which  I  would  favor  it  very  earnestly, 
but  without  which  I  should  oppose  it  with  equal  vigor. 
(a)  It  must  be  substituted  for  the  customs  taxes,  and 
be  used  as  a  means  of  cutting  off  those  taxes  in  num- 
ber and  amount  to  the  greatest  possible  extent.  To 
add  an  income  tax  to  this  cumbrous  and  barbarous 
system  of  duties  is  simply  to  complicate  it  further. 
We  have  laid  a  tariff  averaging  forty  per  cent,  on 
sixteen  hundred  dutiable  articles.  It  is  so  pro- 
tective that  the  taxes  are  all  paid  to  the  protected 
class  instead  of  to  the  government,  and  the  revenue 
is  inadequate.  It  is  then  proposed  to  make  up  the 
deficit  by  an  income  tax.  (l?)  It  must  have  only  a 
very  low  limit  of  exemption.  It  ought  to  begin  to 
operate  on  all  incomes  which  are  so  high  that  they 


VI  PREFACE. 

arc  not  full}-  and  fairh'  rcaclicd  by  such  taxes  on  con- 
sumption as  were  left.  Every  income  tax  which  is 
productive  has  to  reach  the  great  majority  of  incomes. 
(<■)  It  ought  not  to  be  progressive.  Any  one  who 
will  examine  the  facts  can  assure  himself  that  a  pro- 
gressive tax  does  not  pay  for  the  increased  trouble 
and  cost  of  collecting  it.  A  progressive  tax  once  in- 
troduced, or  even  an  income  tax  on  "  large  incomes" 
only,  is  a  mischievous  communistic  arrangement. 

The  principle  of  self-taxation  will  have  to  be  es- 
tablished side  by  side  with  the  principle  of  self-gov- 
ernment as  its  necessary  complement.  If  a  man 
comes  forward  to  claim  political  rights,  why  should 
he  not  be  called  forward  to  assume  political  duties? 

The  difficulties  of  "  direct  "  taxation  are  that  it  re- 
quires a  good  administration,  and  high  public  spirit 
and  morality  in  the  people.  The  first  is  the  more 
important.  Much  stress  is  often  laid  on  the  disposi- 
tion of  people  to  conceal  their  property.  This  dispo- 
sition, of  course,  exists.  What  is  the  reason  for 
it  ?  The  great  reason  is  that  no  man  in  the  country 
has  any  confidence  in  the  system  of  taxation.  No 
one  believes  that  it  is  justly  or  efficiently  adminis- 
tered. Each  man  tries  to  evade  it  because  he  feels 
sure  that  his  neighbors  are  evading  it.  The  remedy 
is  to  administer  the  system  of  taxation  so  surely, 
efficiently,  and  exactly  that  this  belief  shall  disap- 
pear. If  each  man  felt  that  each  man  was  being 
forced  to  do  his  full  share,  each  would  come  up  to  his 
own  full  share. 

It  is  also  very  difficult  to  raise  a  large  revenue  by 


PREFACE,  VU 

direct  taxation.  If  an  income  tax  equal  to  what  each 
one  of  us  now  pays  to  revenue  and  protection  were 
laid  on  the  country,  it  could  not  be  collected.  The 
tax-layer  is  forced  to  seek  various  and  repeated  modes 
of  taxation,  and  to  secure  justice  or  "  equality,"  as 
well  as  he  can,  by  allowing  these  taxes  to  overlay 
each  other. 

I  may  say  that  I  could  not  favor  the  apportion- 
ment of  national  taxation  amongst  the  States  per 
capita.  It  was  a  vicious  arrangement  introduced  into 
the  Federal  Constitution,  and  cannot  be  modified  to 
make  it  sound. 

Our  common  enemy  is  protection,  and  I  have  indi- 
cated already  that  I  am  willing  to  co-operate  in  any 
attack  on  this  system,  or  in  any  movement  which  will 
keep  up  thought  and  discussion  about  it.  The  question 
whether  the  government  should  get  its  revenue  by 
direct  taxes  or  by  customs  may  be  open  for  a  long 
time  yet.  The  question  whether  the  government 
shall  make  A  give  a  part  of  his  product  to  B,  to  sup- 
port B  in  an  unproductive  industry,  is  a  question 
which  cannot  remain  open  long.  Revenue  and  pro- 
tection absolutely  exclude  each  other.  They  have 
nothing  in  common  except  that  they  have  been  com- 
bined by  law.  The  people  of  the  United  States  sub- 
mitted to  taxation,  because  they  thought  it  necessary 
for  revenue,  and  the  protectionists  seized  the  oppor- 
tunity to  load  the  truly  productive  industries  of  the 
country  with  heavy  burdens  which  give  the  govern- 
ment not  one  cent  of  revenue.  Any  tax  which  acts 
protectively  keeps  imports  out.     If  imports  arc  kept 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

out  they  produce  no  revenue.  Hence  protection  and 
revenue  exclude  each  other.  The  tax  then  falls  on 
the  people,  but  the  revenue  all  goes  to  the  pro- 
tected producer.  In  1877  the  imports  of  copper  were 
$30  in  value,  and  they  paid  $11.50  duty.  The  tax 
was  therefore  38-^  per  cent,  ad  valorem,  and  was  pro- 
hibitory, and  the  tax  to  that  amount  paid  by  the 
people  to  the  American  copper  miners,  who  have  the 
richest  and  most  accessible  mines  in  the  world,  pro- 
duced not  a  cent  of  revenue.  The  imports  of  cop- 
per manufactures  were  $80,000,  and  the  revenue 
$30,000,  or  37J  per  cent.,  which  shows  that  the  tax 
was  almost  prohibitory,  but  also  that  the  tariff  was 
a  dead  loss  to  the  copper  and  brass  manufacturers. 
If  the  copper  and  brass  manufacturers  could  hold  the 
market  with  less  protection  than  the  raw  material 
had,  they  could  hold  it  without  any,  if  the  raw 
material  were  free,  and  the  system  only  cripples  them 
in  machinery  and  other  supplies.  If  protected  in- 
fants ever  come  of  age,  these  two  ought  to  be  con- 
sidered near  it. 

The  question  is  often  asked  why  we  cannot  get  up 
a  free-trade  agitation  here  like  the  anti-corn-law  agi- 
tation in  England.  Certainly  no  one  who  studies 
economic  questions  disinterestedly  can  help  being 
struck  again  and  again  with  the  immense  harm  the 
protective  system  does  to  this  country. 

The  case,  however,  is  different  in  many  respects. 
It  is  often  said  that  England  protected  until  she  was 
strong  and  then  turned  to  free  trade.  Such  an  as- 
sertion has   not    the   slightest  ground   in   historical 


PREFACE.  IX 

fact.  The  taxes  laid  in  Great  Britain,  to  protect  iron 
and  wool  had  just  as  much  effect  as  our  former  tax 
on  cotton,  or  our  present  tax  on  breadstuffs,  but- 
ter, potatoes,  etc.,  etc.,  to  protect  agriculture.  The 
whole  truth  would  go  further  than  this.  The  taxes 
referred  to  were  injurious  in  many  ways,  as  all  Eng- 
lish historians  and  economists  agree.  The  free-trade 
agitation  in  England  sprang  from  the  manufacturing 
distress  of  1836.  The  protected  interest  was  agricul- 
ture, and,  as  one  home  industry  cannot  be  protected 
save  at  the  expense  of  another,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  a  nation  cannot  raise  itself  by  taking  hold  of  its 
feet  any  more  than  a  man  can,  the  protection  given 
to  agriculture  in  England  was  given  at  the  cost  of 
the  normal  and  independently  strong  industry  of 
the  country,  manufactures. 

Cobden  and  Bright  and  the  rest  of  the  free-trade  men 
got  their  determination  from  what  they  saw  in  1836 — 
misery,  pauperism,  starvation,  and  nakedness  amongst 
the  manufacturing  laborers.  They  worked  for  ten 
years,  spent  over  a  half  million  of  dollars,  and  then  the 
Irish  famine  fairly  carried  them  to  victory.  The  move- 
ment was  born  in  starvation  and   matured  in  famine. 

They  had  two  strong  points  for  a  popular  move- 
ment. 

i)  They  fought  for  cheap  food  for  the  people. 
The  corn  laws  and  provision  laws  kept  out  of  Eng- 
land the  abundance  of  the  earth  and  forbade  her  peo- 
ple to  eat  when  they  were  starving.  The  provision 
laws  forbade  the  importation  of  butter  for  food,  but 
allowed    it    if  the    butter  was  spoilt  and  only  fit  for 


X  PREFACE. 

grease  for  macliincry.  To  make  sure  that  any  butter 
imported  was  spoiled  a  custom-liouse  officer  thrust 
a  tarred  stick  into  it,  so  as  to  be  sure  of  rendering  it 
unfit  for  food.  The  protectionists  have  carried  in 
their  writings  for  a  long  time  the  story  of  the  old  Dutch 
East  India  Company  destroying  half  the  crop  of  spice 
to  get  a  higher  price  for  the  other  half  than  they  could 
have  got  for  the  whole,  as  a  specimen  of  commercial 
smartness.  It  is  worth  noticing  that  the  Company 
failed  ;  but  the  protectionists  ought  to  take  up  the 
story  of  this  custom-house  officer  with  his  tarred 
stick.  It  is  a  great  deal  better  illustration  of  protec- 
tion. 

Against  such  laws  the  popular  cry  of  "cheap  food 
for  the  people  "  was  mighty, 

2)  They  fought  against  a  great  land-owning  aristoc- 
racy. Here  was  another  popular  advantage.  The  Eng- 
lish land-owners  were  no  whit  worse  than  the  American 
manufacturers.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  popu- 
lar prejudice  against  a  class  or  a  section  is  a  good  or 
desirable  weapon  to  use.  I  would  not  want  to  see 
it  brought  into  our  controversy,  but  it  was  a  factor 
in  the  English  case. 

We  cannot  say  that  protection,  in  this  country,  is 
bringing  any  one  to  starvation.  The  truth  in  regard 
to  protection  is  that  it  lessens  the  amount  of  com- 
fort and  ivell-being  of  the  luhole  people  compared  with 
■what  they  might  have  had  for  the  labor  and  capital 
expended  by  them.  They  have  less  and  poorer  food, 
clothing,  fuel,  lights,  house-room,  books,  education, 
leisure,  etc.,  etc.,  than  they  might  have  had,  taking  the 


PREFACE.  XI 

hours  they  labor,  the  capital  at  their  disposal,  and 
the  resources  of  the  land  as  they  are.  But  the  scale 
of  comfort  is  so  high  on  the  average,  in  a  new  country 
with  fresh  resources,  that  the  people  do  not  appre- 
ciate how  much  better  off  they  ought  to  be.  A 
man  in  distress  will  make  energetic  efforts  to  get  what 
he  might  have ;  a  man  in  comfort  will  count  the 
cost  of  securing  something  more,  and  he  may  submit 
rather  than  fight.  Free  trade  will  come  about  here 
by  the  gradual  growth  of  the  conviction  that  protec- 
tion is  all  a  mistake  from  beginning  to  end,  for  the 
protected,  as  well  as  for  others:  and  then,  when 
people  go  back  to  read  the  platitudes  with  which  our 
contemporaries  satisfy  themselves  about  protection, 
they  will  feel  the  same  astonishment  that  we  do  that 
it  took  past  generations  so  long  to  learn  religious 
toleration,  free  speech,  free  press,  or  any  other  de- 
velopment of  liberty. 

W.  G.  SUMNER. 


THE    TARIFF    SYSTEM 

AND 

THE    CIVIL    SERVICE. 


Of  all  the  questions  now  pressing-  upon  the  atten. 
tion  of  the  country  there  is  none  of  greater  impor- 
tance, none  which  more  universally  and  vitally  af- 
fects the  immediate  interests  of  the  whole  people, 
than  that  of  taxation,  and  especially  taxation  by 
means  of  a  Tariff. 

Nor  is  there  any  question  which  has  so  frequently 
engaged  the  time  and  attention  of  Congress,  and 
been  so  perverted  from  its  original  purpose  ;  none 
which  has  been  discussed  with  more  acrimony  and 
bitterness,  and  has  produced  more  sectional  animosity 
and  strife  than  the  Tariff  Revenue  System. 

There  has  been  no  system  of  public  policy  sustain- 
ed upon  such  contradictory  theories  ;  and  none  which 
in  its  insidious  influences  has  resulted  in  greater 
injury  to  the  manufacturing  industries  and  the  true 
welfare  of  the  country  than  the  Tariff"  Protection" 
Policy. 

There  is  nothing  so  full  of  danger  to  our  liberties 

(5) 


6  THE   TARIFF   SYSTEK 

and  our  cherished  institutions  as  the  continuation  of 
a  system  of  revenue,  capable  of  being  so  perverted 
and  abused.  It  has  developed  and  centralized  an 
enormous  amount  of  patronage  most  corrupt  in  its 
character,  entirely  under  the  control  of  the  central 
federal  power  and  its  partizans. 

But  at  last  the  heav}^  burdens  of  taxation  under 
which  the  people  are  staggering,  and  the  deplorable 
official  corruption  so  painfully  apparent  on  every  side, 
are  arousing  the  honest  and  patriotic  element  of  the 
country  to  demand  reforms  both  in  our  Revenue 
S3'stem  and  the  Civil  Service.  To  accomplish  re- 
sults so  desirable,  the  work  must  be  earnestly,  thor- 
oughly and  intelligently  prosecuted,  not  by  cutting 
off  the  bi-anches  merely,  but  by  destroj'ing  the  very 
roots  of  the  system  which  has  produced  the  evils  from 
which  the  country  is  now  suffering. 

BY   WHOM   THE   BURDEN   IS   BORNE. 

No 'portion  of  the  people  have  really  so  great  an 
interest  in  taxation  and  in  the  pure  administration  ol 
government  as  industrious  working  men  and  women. 

Labor  is  the  foundation  on  which  prosperity  is 
based,  and  like  the  lowest  stratum  in  any  superstruc- 
ture, it  must  necessarily  bear  the  heaviest  weight. 
All  taxes  are  a  burden  upon  industry,  and  bear  most 
heavily  upon  the  working  classes.  They  may  be  iu 
direct  and  hidden  so  that  the  burden  is  not  fully  com- 
prehended, but  it  is  none  the  less  real.  The  owners  of 
dwellings  and  those  who  are  engaged  in  business  may 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE.  7 

be  able  to  transfer  to  others  some  portion  of  their  taxes 
by  charging  higher  rents  for  their  houses  and  higher 
prices  for  their  goods,  but  those  who  are  obhged  to 
use  all  their  earnings  to  meet  their  expenses  of  living, 
can  find  no  one  on  whom  to  transfer  any  portion 
which  directly  falls  upon  them,  and  yet  must  bear  in 
addition  that  which  is  shifted  on  them  by  the  land- 
lords and  traders. 

No  one  questions  the  necessity  for  some  system 
by  which  the  government  shall  be  furnished  with  all 
necessary  revenue.  But  taxes  necessarily  increase 
the  cost  of  living,  and  it  is  a  sacred  duty  of  Congress 
and  of  every  other  legislative  body  claiming  to  repre- 
sent the  interests  of  the  people,  to  adopt  the  simplest, 
most  equitable  and  least  expensive  method  of  obtain- 
ing revenue ;  and  to  avoid  all  legislation  which  need- 
lessly increases  the  cost  of  living,  or  favors  special 
interests,  or  which  in  any  way  interferes  with  industry 
or  the  natural  laws  of  trade. 

TARIFF  TAXATION. 

Tariff  or  Import  Duties, although  levied  upon  the 
productions  of  other  countries,  are  none  the  less  a  tax 
which  must  be  borne  by  our  own  people,  either  by 
paying  higher  prices  for  what  we  buy,  or  by  obtaining 
lower  prices  for  what  we  sell.  This  tax  we  cannot 
impose  upon  other  countries,  nor  should  we  seek  to 
do  so.  The  support  of  our  own  government  should 
appeal  to  our  national  pride,  and  a  v/holesome  self-re- 
spect cause  us  to  avoid  any  effort  or  desire  to  foist  it 
upon  others. 


8  THE   TARIFF  SYSTEM 

This  import  tax  when  levied  upon  articles  which 
are  not  produced  in  this  country  is  of  comparatively 
limited  range  in  its  effect  upon  prices,  while  the  en- 
tire amount  paid  by  the  importer  goes  directly  into  the 
government  treasuiy.  When,  however,  this  tax  is 
levied  upon  such  articles  as  we  do  produce,  and  be- 
cause the}^  are  produced  in  this  countr}^  the  prices 
of  all  these  articles,  both  domestic  and  foreign, 
are  affected  with  this  very  important  difference, 
that  the  increased  prices  of  domestic  goods  entirely 
accrue  to  private  interests,  and  not  only  afford  no 
additional  revenue  to  the  government  but  actually 
diminish  the  amount  it  would  otherwise  receive. 
Thus  when  as  at  present,  duties  are  levied  upon  every 
kind  of  goods  manufactured  in  this  country,  they  be- 
come a  tax  which  increases  the  prices  of  every  thing 
we  wear;  the  cost  of  the  tools  with  which  we  work; 
the  rent  of  the  houses  in  which  we  live,  and  even 
the  very  food  that  we  eat.  Herein  lies  the  reason  why 
the  prices  of  all  the  necessaries  of  life  have  for  3^ears 
past  been  so  enormously  high,  bearing  with  the  great- 
est severity  upon  the  working  classes,  who,  notwith- 
standing the  higher  wages  they  receive,  are  obliged 
to  pay  so  much  more  for  everything  they  need,  that 
they  do  not  enjoy  as  many  comforts  as  with  the  lower 
wages  of  the  years  ago,  before  the  tariff  taxes  were 
so  enormously  increased.  In  this  way  their  earnings 
arc  gradually  but  surely  diverted  from  them,  con- 
stantly tending  to  make  them  still  poorer  while  others 
arc  enriched. 


AND   THE   CIVIL    SERVICE.  9 

HOW   MUCH   THE   PEOPLE   PAY. 

Ifthe  manufacturing  interests  for  whose  special  beiie- 
fii  these  tariff  taxes  have  been  multiplied,  were  requir- 
ed through  an  excise  tax  to  pay  to  the  governmen 
the  percentage  now  levied  upon  foreign  goods,  the 
government,  instead  of  the  manufacturer,  would  re- 
ceive all  the  difference  in  prices  which  the  people  pa3% 
and  the  amount  added  to  the  revenue  would  be  suffi- 
cient to  liquidate  the  entire  National  Debt  within 
three  years.  This  may  be  shown  by  taking  the  single 
item  of  pig-iron,  which  is  characteristic  of  the  entire 
list.  The  duty  on  the  imported  iron  is  seven  dollars 
per  ton  in  gold.  Of  the  whole  quantity  used  in  this 
country  but  about  one-filth  is  impoi'ted,  and  on 
this  the  government  receives  revenue,  while  on  the 
other  four-fifths  it  receives  none.  The  price  of  the 
entire  quantity  consumed,  however,  is  increased  by 
the  tariff.  Now,  if  the  whole  were  imported,  or  it 
domestic  iron  paid  an  excise  tax  equal  to  the  tariff 
tax,  the  government  treasury  would  receive  five 
tim.es  the  amount  now  collected.  And  if  the  whole 
amount  of  revenue  from  imports  were  thus  multi- 
plied, which  would  not  be  an  excessive  average  if 
applied  to  the  entire  list,  a  fair  estimate  can  be  form- 
ed of  the  amount  which  the  people  pay  through  this 
indirect  system  of  taxation,  without  benefit  to  them- 
selves or  to  the  government. 

The  power  to  levy  taxes,  conferred  upon  Congress 
by  the  Constitution, was  intended  to  provide  revenue 
for  the  government,  and  for  no  other  purpose.     It  is 
2* 


lO  THE   TARIFF   SYSTEM 

interesting,  nay  surprising,  to  note  the  advanced  views 
held  by  the  convention  which  framed  the  Consti- 
tution. While  leaving  Congress  to  determine  on  the 
method  by  which  to  provide  revenue,  it  seemed  to  have 
anticipated  an  early  resort  to  direct  taxes,  and  made 
provision  in  the  Constitution  for  the  apportionment 
of  the  amount  among  the  States  in  proportion  to 
population  and  representation.  One  of  the  members 
remarked  in  regard  to  the  facility  of  this  method,  that 
"  the  sum  allotted  to  each  State  may  be  levied  with- 
"  out  difficulty  according  to  the  plan  used  by  the 
"  State  in  raising  its  own  supplies." 

PERVERSION   OF   CONGRESSIONAL  POWERS. 

In  those  days,  however,  there  was  a  prevailing  be- 
lief in  other  countries,  and  current  to  a  considerable 
extent  with  our  own  people,  that  a  tariff  tax  upon 
foreign  commodities  conferred  great  benefits  upon  the 
people  by  protecting  their  own  manufacturing  indus- 
tries from  foreign  competition.  Hence,  in  the  prep- 
aration of  the  first  tariff,  it  was  not  deemed  incon- 
sistent with  the  interest  of  the  people  that  some 
discrimination  should  be  made  in  regard  to  certain 
articles,  such  as  cotton  and  woolen-goods  and  iron 
wares,  thus  to  be  afforded  to  capitalists  an  incidental 
encouragement  to  em  bark  in  manufacturing  industries. 

This  was  doubtless  well  intentioned,  but  under 
such  a  form  of  government  as  ours  it  involved  a  grave 
error,  the  magnitude  of  which  was  not  realized  be- 
cause of  the  smallness  of  the  rate,  and  consequently 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE.  II 

attention  was  not  drawn  to  the  injurious  principle  on 
which  the  measure  was  based.  It  was  not  then  seen 
that  this  was  r.n  exercise  of  the  taxing  power  of  Con- 
gress for  the  benefit  of  private  interests,  offering 
inducements  for  the  investment  of  capital  in  manu- 
facturing industries  by  raising  an  artificial  barrier 
against  foreign  competition ;  that  it  was  imposing  a 
tax  upon  all  engaged  in  other  occupations,  and  who 
were  unable  or  unwilling  to  become  manufacturers. 
It  was  an  adoption  by  the  National  Legislature  of  the 
principle  of  special  legislation,  which  has  since  develop- 
ed into  such  forms  and  proportions  as  to  be  the  curse 
of  the  country.  This  insidious  error  stealthily  ad~ 
vanced  year  by  year  in  our  earlier  history  until  it 
gained  sufficient  influence  and  power  in  Congress  to 
boldly  avow  and  adopt  Protection  as  the  policy  oi 
the  government. 

This  policy  has  been  persistently  pursued  until  the 
original  purpose  of  the  tariff  system  has  been  com- 
pletely overthrown,  and  instead  of  being  a  system  **  for 
revenue  with  incidental  protection,"  it  has  become  a 
system  for  protection  zvith  incidental  revenue.  Con- 
gress instead  of  legislating  to  increase  the  revenue  ol 
the  government,  now  prostitutes  the  power  delegat- 
ed to  it  by  the  people  to  promote  special  interests. 

AGGRANDISEMENT   OF   CAPITAL  BY   LAW. 

It  is  this  perversion  and  abuse  of  the  taxing  power 
by  special  legislation,  aggrandizing  capital,  which  has 
produced  the  present  apparent  antagonism  between 
capital  and  labor  ;  for  there  is  no  normal  antagonism 


12  THE   TARIFF   SYSTF.M 

between  these  elements  of  industry.  No  working-- 
man  finds  any  antagonism  between  his  labor  and  the 
little  capital  he  has  managed  to  accumulate;  on  the 
contrary,  he  finds  it  a  constant  incentive  and  encour- 
agement to  him  in  his  work.  Antagonism  and 
jealousy  exist  only  because  of  the  increased,  un- 
natural, power  given  to  the  possessors  of  capital  by 
laws  enacted  for  their  special  benefit,  without  any 
proper  consideration  for  the  interests  of  the  working- 
men — without  affording  them  any  adequate  security 
against  its^  abuse,  and  without  increasing  proportion- 
ately their  power  of  self-defence. 

LEGISLATION   CONTROLLED   BY   CAPITAL. 

The  granting  of  enormous  subsidies  in  lands  to 
railroads,  and  the  conferring  of  special  privileges  and 
immunities  upon  banking  institutions,  manufacturing 
corporations,  and  other  forms  of  monopoly,  have 
given  them  such  unnatural  and  overwhelming  pow- 
er, as  to  control  almost  the  whole  legislation  of  the 
country,  both  State  and  Federal,  and  this  power,  il 
not  promptly  and  firmly  grappled  with  and  over 
thrown,  will  soon  overpower  the  people  themselves. 

DANGER   OF  COUNTER   LEGISLATION. 

The  workingmen  of  this  country,  conscious  ol 
the  burden  pressing  upon  them  with  increasing  se- 
verity, are  rapidly  comprehending  that  the  difficulty 
arises  from  the  aggrandisement  of  capital  by  legisla- 
tive enactments.    They  are  steadily  organizing  them- 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE  1 3 

selves  for  the  purpose  of  demanding  relief  from  this 
unnatural  condition  of  things,  but  there  is  great 
danger  that  a  remedy  will  be  sought  in  the  enact- 
ment of  new  laws,  rather  than  in  the  abolishment  oi 
those  which  have  produced  the  injuries  —  which 
would  be  an  attempt  to  correct  existing  evils  by 
counter-irritants. 

This  course  cannot  be  effective.  It  will  only  increase 
the  enmity  now  existing  between  labor  and  capital, 
while  there  need  be.  no  real  conflict  of  interest,  and 
there  would  be  none  between  them  if  left  to  them- 
selves undisturbed  by  legislation.  Labor  can  always 
defend  itself  against  a  selfish  and  improper  use  of 
capital,  and  need  ask  no  favor  so  long  as  both  are 
eft  equally  free.  Existing  evils  resulting  from  im- 
proper laws  cannot  be  remedied  b}'  new  laws  to 
counteract  those  now  in  force,  for  it  is  equally  wrong 
to  legislate  in  the  special  raterest  of  labor.  The  only 
way  is  to  annul  all  laws  which  confer  special  advan- 
tages on  either. 

EXCHANGES  SHOULD  BE  FREE. 

Trade  and  Commerce — i.  e.,  exchanging  the  prod- 
ucts of  labor — are  essential  to  the  welfare  of  humanity. 
Production  and  exchanges  ar-e  ahke  necessary  to 
the  prosperity  and  welfare  of  the  individual  and  of 
the  nation.  Whether  with  men  or  with  nations  the 
same  laws  of  trade  are  applicable,  being  limited  by 
neither  state  nor  national  boundaries.  In  order  to  se- 
cure the  largest  benefits  which  labor  and  trade  are 
capable  of  conferring,  they  should   be  alike  libera 


14  THE   TARIFF   SYSTEM 

ted  from  legal  obstacles,  and  be  left  as  free  as  possi- 
ble to  seek  its  highest  development. 

A  country  like  ours  must  necessarily  have  extensive 
and  important  business  or  exchanging  relations  with 
other  countries.  The  benefits  of  these  exchanges  are 
not  limited  to  the  comparatively  small  number  of 
persons  directly  engaged  in  exporting  or  importing 
products  and  commodities,  but  more  or  less  affect  the 
interests  of  the  whole  people. 

A  Revenue  System  should  at  least  have  the  merit  of 
stability.  This  is  equally  necessary  to  the  govern- 
ment, which  needs  steadiness  of  revenue,  and  to  the 
people,  who  need  steadiness,  jn  commerce  and  indus- 
try, and  find  the  ordinary  and  unavoidable  fluctuations 
of  trade  quite  enough  to  contend  with.  It  is  not 
possible  that  frequent,  irregular  and  arbitrary  con- 
gressional changes  in  the  revenue  laws  can  be  other- 
wise than  injurious,  in  unsettling  and  deranging  the 
business  relations  of  the  country.  Every  sensible  man 
understands  this,  and  if,  notwithstanding,  the  country 
seems  prosperous,  this  prosperity  is  not  to  be  attri- 
buted to  any  tariff  laws,  but  rather  to  the  indomitable 
industry  and  energy  of  the  people  overcoming,  in 
part  at  least,  the  evils  of  such  congressional  legisla- 
tion. 

HOW   FREQUENTLY   CHANGES   HAVE    BEEN   MADE. 

The  Tariff  System,  since  its  adoption,  in  1789,  has 
Deen  discussed  in  Congress  in  almost  every  ses- 
sion, and  has  been  altered  or  amended  more  than 
forty  times,  involving  in  every  instance  more  or  less 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE.  1 5 

derangement  of  the  business  relations  of  the  people. 
If  these  derangements  were  of  benefit  to  the  govern- 
ment there  might  be  some  shadow  of  justification  for 
the  action  which  produced  them.  But  such  legisla- 
tion when  enacted,  as  in  most  instances  it  has  been, 
with  intent  to  benefit  special  interests — to  "  protect  " 
or  "encourage"  one  kind  of  industry  by  taxing  or 
obstructing  others  just  as  legitimate,  just  as  neces- 
sary, just  as  much  entitled  to  protection,  and  gener- 
ally more  profitable  to  the  country — is  in  no  wise  to 
be  justified,  and  is  opposed  to  the  broad  and  benefi- 
cent principles  on  which  our  government  is  founded. 
Mr.  E.  B.  Bigelow,  himself  a  Protectionist,  in  his 
work  on  the  tariff  enumerates  eighteen  changes  previ- 
ous to  1832,  viz.  :  in  17S9,  1790,  1791,  1792,  1794,  1795, 
1797,  1800,  1804,  1805,  1812,  1813,  1816,  1818,  1819, 
1824,  1828,  1830,  1832.  And  there  have  been  more 
than  twenty  successive  changes  at  irregular  intervals 
between  1832  and  1871. 

PRQTECTIOXISTS   NEVER   SATISFIED. 

The  changes  between  1861  and  1870  have  been  more 
sweeping  and  more  frequent  than  within  any  similar 
period  in  our  history.  During  this  period  the  protec- 
tionists have  been  entirely  in  the  ascendant,  and 
have  without  difficulty  passed  every  measure  they 
desired.  But  they  have  never  succeeded  in  satisf\'- 
ing  even  themselves.  Now  that  they  no  longer  have 
such  unlimited  power,  they  are  with  cool  effront- 
ery  appcahng   to   the   people   for  co-operation   to 


l6  THE  TAFvIFF   SYSTEM 

"  secure  stability  of  legislation  on   all   questions  of 
Tariff,  Commerce  and  Finance  !  " 

When  so  many  alterations  ha\'e  been  made  in  our 
tariff  laws,  averaging  more  than  one  every  two  years, 
it  could  not  be  otherwise  than  that  the  discussions 
relating  to  the  subject  would  be  increased  in  ini. 
portance  at  nearly  every  session  of  Congress.  With 
the  inevitable  derangement  of  business  relations,  and 
the  clashing  of  the  various  interests  of  different  sec- 
tions of  the  country,  these  discussions  have  constantly 
increased  in  acrimony  and  bitterness,  and  have  pro- 
duced more  sectional  animosity  and  strife  than  that 
attending  any  other,  not  excepting  slavery. 

GRAVE   QUESTIONS  AS  TO   CONSEQUENCES. 

The  controversies  arising  from  legislation  on  the 
tariff  question  previous  to  1832,  developed  in  that 
year  all  the  elements  of  civil  war,  lacking  only  the 
strength  and  preparation  attained  in  1861,  to  have 
made  it  proportionately  disastrous  with4hat  sad  and 
bloody  contest.  Indeed  it  is  a  question  whether  but 
for  the  sectional  strife  growing  out  of  the  tariff  legis- 
lation prior  to  1832,  there  would  have  been  a  re- 
bellion in  1 861?  Whether  the  supposed  value  of 
slave  labor  and  its  necessity  to  the  South,  did  not 
steadily  increase  with  the  increase  of  protective  legis- 
lation ?  Whether  the  perversion  of  our  revenue 
system,  in  order  to  protect  and  aid  manufacturing  in- 
dustries mainly  carried  on  at  the  North,  and  in  which 
the  South  did  not  desire  to  engage,  did  not  more 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE.  1 7 

contribute  to  preserve  slavery,  and  lead  to  the  belief 
of  its  necessity  to  the  people  of  the  South  than  any 
other  cause  ?  The  change  in  the  viev.'s  of  the  South 
regarding  slavery,  has  been  attributed  by  many  to 
the  influence  of  the  Cotton  Gin ;  yet,  as  this  valuable 
machine  was  invented  in  1793,  and  in  use  nearly  forty 
years  before  the  advent  of  the  nullification  troubles 
of  1S32,  is  it  not  preposterous,  nay,  wicked,  to  charge 
upon  an  invention  capable  of  so  great  benefit  to  hu- 
manity, that  its  direct  result  was  to  intensify  and 
perpetuate  human  slavery? 

PROTECTION  A   USURPATION   OF  POWER. 

Protection  to  manufacturers  is  only  another  name 
for  special  legislation.  Manufacturing  is  only  one 
form  of  business,  nothing  more.  It  is  just  as  much  a 
private  business  interest  as  farming  or  trading,  or  any 
other  form  of  employment.  Using  the  power  ol 
Congress  to  promote  either  of  these  interests  by  creat- 
ing obstructions  in  the  way  of  others  is  simply  a 
usurpation  of  power,  which  if  persevered  in,  may  pro- 
duce another  civil  war  as  disastrous  as  that  from 
which  we  have  so  recently  emerged. 

HOW   IT  IS   SUSTAINED. 

The  policy  of  protection  is  sustained  by  its  advo- 
cates on  widely  different  grounds,  and  for  reasons 
both  conflicting  and  inconsistent.  Indeed,  the  whole 
system  is  founded  upon  contradictions  and  antago- 
nisms, impossible  to  harmonize.     It  is  inimical  to  the 


l8  THE   TARIFF   SYSTEM 

principles  of  our  government,  and  contains  within  it- 
self the  elements  of  its  own  destruction.  Many  per- 
sons honestly  support  it  because  of  the  supposed 
benefits  to  the  general  industry  of  the  country,  while 
ttie  persistent  efforts  of  interested,  if  not  selfish  parties, 
for  years  past,  have  involved  the  question  in  so  much 
confusion  as  to  prevent  many  from  seeing  that  it  is 
entirely  inconsistent  with  the  sound  principles  which 
men  adopt  in  their  common  business  affairs. 

CONTRADICTIONS. 

In  the  political  conflicts  growing  out  of  it  in  the 
various  sections  of  the  country,  both  advocates  and 
opponents  of  protection  have  been  influenced  by  rea- 
sons and  motives  contradictory  in  principle.  Pro- 
tectionists so  called  on  the  one  side  were  clamorous 
for  complete  freedom  for  themselves,  but  persistent 
m  their  efforts  to  shackle  trade.  Free  Traders  as 
they  were  called,  on  the  other  side,  were  equally 
strenuous  in  their  demands  for  freedom  in  trade,  while 
at  the  same  time  refusing  to  remove  the  bonds  from 
labor.  This  destructive  antagonism  of  principles  has 
already  produced  disaster  on  the  one  side.  It  is  only 
a  question  of  time  to  ensure  a  similar  result  on  the 
other,  unless  averted  by  timely  abandonment  of  the 
whole  pernicious  and  unnatural  system. 

MOTIVES   FOR   CONTINUING   IT. 

The  Protective  policy  is  advocated  by  a  compara- 
tively I  nconsiderable  number  of  persons  possessed  oi 


AND   THE    CIVIL   SERIVCE.  I9 

large  \i-ea(tli,  whose  whole  capital  and  whose  ma- 
terial interests  are  identified  with  some  kind  of  busi- 
ness which  it  is  supposed  deriv^es  its  profits  from  the 
protective  system.  These  hav'e  no  patience  with  men 
who  differ  wath  them,  and  are  not  willing  to  be  taxed 
for  their  supposed  benefit.  Having  been  for  so  long 
a  time  ''  encouraged  "  and  supported  by  an  assessment 
upon  the  industry  of  others,  its  continuance  is  insisted 
upon  by  the  protected  interests  as  a  right.  They  are 
very  fluent  in  declaiming  about  "  the  pauper  labor  of 
Europe,"  forgetting  that  as  paupers  are  those  who 
are  supported  at  public  expense  by  a  tax  upon  the 
industry  of  others,  this  epithet  may  with  more  truth- 
fulness be  applied  to  themselves  than  to  the  producers 
of  Europe. 

Some  defend  the  system  from  national  prejudices, 
supposing  that  it  can  be  used  as  a  retaliatory  measure 
towards  rival  countries,  inflicting  injuries  on  them, 
while  we  receive  some  indefinable  benefit  from  it. 
It  is  forgotten  that  such  measures  are  unworthy  of  a 
nation  calling  itself  Christian,  and  through  higher  than 
human  laws,  must  result  in  greater  injury  to  those 
who  adopt  them. 

Some  advocate  the  system  entirely  from  selfish  mo- 
tives, seeking  to  derive  benefit  to  themselves,  by  im- 
posing disadvantages  upon  others.  It  might  be  well 
for  such  to  remember  that  selfishness  is  a  mean  and 
degrading  element,  one  which  men  are  instinctively  re- 
luctant to  have  applied  to  themselves,  and  which  cer- 
tainlv  is  no  less  offensive  and  despicable  as  the  charac- 
teristic of  a  nation  than  when  found  in  the  individual. 


20  THE    TARIFF    SYSTEM 

There  arc  many,  however,  who  believe  that  protcc- 
ticn  is  necessary  to  the  welfare  of  the  industrious 
working  masses  of  the  people.  Such  are  doubtless 
honest  in  this  conviction,  very  intelligent  on  other 
practical su bjects,  but  have  otidentl}'-  given  this  most 
important  question  no  careful  consideration.  To  all 
such  it  seems  intricate  and  confusing,  and  they  prefer 
to  remain  ignorant  of  its  effects  rather  than  take  a 
little  trouble  to  anal3'ze  it.  Complaining  as  they  do 
about  taxes  and  corruption,  they  yet  allow  selfish  and 
interested  parties  to  control  legislation,  and  thus  con- 
tinue the  present  evils  which  oppress  the  community. 

PROTECTION  rOES  NOT  PROTECT  LABOR. 

Protective  legislation  ahva)'S  has  for  intent  to  con- 
fer advantages  upon  capital,  but  neglects  the  in- 
terests of  labor.  In  order  to  divert  capital  from  other 
uses,  it  attempts  to  make  it  more  remunerative  in  cer- 
tain industries  than  in  others,  and  is  thus  used  pro- 
fessedly as  a  means  of  protecting  our  national  indus- 
try against  foreign  competition.  This  compels  the 
people  to  pay  a  higher  price  for  goods,  to  aid  certain 
manufacturers,  and  imposes  a  penalty  on  those  who 
prefer  foreign  fabrics.  By  this  policy,  the  people, 
deprived  of  a  natural  right,  are  obliged  to  pay  more 
for  clothing,  tools,  and  other  necessaries  of  life  without 
being  secured  any  increased  means  wherewith  to  pay 
for  them.  Congress  has  no  right  to  require  from  an}' 
one  a  surrender  of  property  without  an  equivalent, 
even   for  government   purposes,  yet  it  confers  the 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE.  21 

power  to  do  this  upon  certain  manufacturers  b}' 
means  of  the  tariff.  It  may  be  that  higher  prices  are 
not  invariably  the  result,  but  such  is  nevertheless  the 
intention  and  purpose  of  those  who  secure  such  legis- 
lation. It  is  intended  to  secure  to  certain  manufac- 
turers some  advantage  in  the  prices  of  the  goods 
they  produce,  but  does  not  secure  or  seek  to  secure 
any  corresponding  advantage  to  their  workman  and 
employes.  There  is  not  only  no  protection  to  them 
against  the  free  importation  of  competing  labor,  but 
this  is  purposely  left  open  that  the  manufacturers  may 
also  be  protected  against  any  demands  from  their 
workmen  and  employes  for  increased  wages.  In- 
deed, protection  is  demanded  expressly  because  wages 
are  already  so  high  !  It  is  not  to  furnish  employment 
to  those  who  are  without  it,  but  to  indemnify  the  em- 
ployers for  the  high  rates  which  labor  commands. 
These  tariff  assessments  rest  upon  the  whole  people, 
including  the  very  class  who  do  the  work  of  produc- 
ing the  protected  articles. 

CHANGE   OF  BASE. 

Having  succeeded  in  obtaining  protection  on 
the  plea  of  high  wages,  having  long  received  the 
supposed  benefit  of  it,  when  the  people  think  this  fos- 
tering should  be  discontinued,  an  appeal  is  next  made 
to  the  sympathies  and  fears  of  the  people  on  the  plea 
that  if  protection  ceases,  the  workmen  will  be  thrown 
out  of  employment,  or  else  be  obliged  to  work  at  the 
pauper  rates  prevailing  in  Europe. 

Efforts  are  persistent!}  made  to  produce  the  impres- 


22  THE   TARIFF   SYSTEM 

sion  that  not  only  the  prosperity  of  all  the  working- 
classes,  bnt  even  that  of  the  whole  country  is  dependent 
upon  this  protection  to  manufacturing  industries, 
while  the  fact  remains  that  those  industries  which 
claim  to  need  it,  are  supported  like  paupers  by  a  tax  up- 
on the  self-sustaining  industries  of  the  country  ;  hence 
the  whole  country  would  be  far  more  prosperous 
without  them,  if,  unaided,  they  cannot  sustain  them- 
selves. 

STRIKES  AND   PROTECTION   LAWS   THE   SAME. 

The  laws  protecting  manufacturers  have  produced 
the  organization  of  Trades  Unions,  and  the  numer- 
ous Strikes  which  have  so  greatly  injured  labor  and 
industry.  It  is  through  combinations  of  manufactur 
ers  that  Congress  has  enacted  laws  whereby  working- 
men  and  all  others  are  prevented  buying  goods  where 
and  from  whom  they  please,  except  at  artificially  en- 
hanced prices.  Acting  in  self-defense,  the  working- 
men  combine  under  laws  of  their  own  making  to 
prevent  the  manufacturers  from  employing  whom 
they  please,  except  on  such  terms  and  conditions  as 
these  trades  unions  may  prescribe.  1  rades  unions 
and  strikes  among  workingmen  are  identical  in 
principle  with  protection  to  manufacturers.  Both 
attempt  to  secure  selfish  ends  by  compulsory  msans  ; 
one  seeking  to  obtain  higher  prices  for  their  goods  ; 
the  other  to  secure  higher  prices  for  their  labor. 
Both  seek  to  accomplish  their  purpose  by  obstruct- 
ing the  natural  laws  of  trade  and  by  violating  the 
sacred  rights  of  individuals. 


AND   THE   CIVIL    SERVICE.  23 


PROTECTION   IN   ENGLAND. 

Frequent  reference  is  made  to  the  attempt  of  Eng- 
land during  perhaps  two  hundred  years,  to  build  up 
by  protection  a  vast  system  of  manufactures  which  it 
is  said  has  secured  to  her  her  present  enormous  accu- 
mulation of  capital.  We  are  told  that  when  we  shall 
have  attained  a  similar  condition,  we  too,  like  England, 
will  be  able  to  abandon  the  protective  system.  It  is 
taken  for  granted  by  many,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that 
the  results  attained  by  England  are  attributable  to 
the  protective  policy.  But  others  are  ready  to  dis- 
pute this.  If,  however,  we  admit  that  England  has 
acquired  her  wealth  and  manufacturing  pre-eminence 
through  such  a  system,  the  question  naturally  arises  as 
to  which  portion  of  her  people  received  the  benefits, 
the  working  classes,  or  the  manufacturing  capitalist  ? 
Why  was  it  that,  under  a  system  which  is  claimed  to 
be  especially  favorable  to  workingmen,  the  British 
Iron  Masters  and  other  proprietors  became  enormous- 
ly wealthy,  while  the  working  classes  were  crushed 
and  ground  to  the  deepest  degradation  and  poverty  ? 
Why  was  it  that  the  working  classes  in  Great  Britain 
were  so  nearly  starved  under  the  protective  system, 
that  in  sheer  desperation  they  demanded  and  secured 
its  repeal?  And  why  is  it  that  sbice  the  repeal,  these 
same  classes  have  so  developed  in  material  and  intel- 
lectual and  political  strength,  that  they  now  influ- 
ence the  pohcy  of  government  in  matters  where  once 
they  were  almost  entirely  ignored  ? 


24  THE   TARIFF   SYSTEM 

PROTECTION   DEFEATED    BY   SELF-INTEREST. 

Protection  so  called  is  contrary  to  the  laws  of  trade 
universally  adopted  in  the  management  of  individual 
affairs.  Obstacles  and  hindrances  in  the  way  of  any 
lawful  business,  are  if  possible  removed,  not  interpos- 
ed. When  these  obstacles  are  in  the  form  of  a  statute 
law,  efforts  are  made  to  evade  its  application  to  them- 
selves, even  by  those  who  may  have  advocated  its 
adoption.  The  number  of  men  throughout  the  country 
directly  interested  in  any  one  article  protected  is  very 
small,  while  all  the  rest  are  interested  in  exactly  the 
opposite  direction.  This  is  the  fact  in  regard  to  each 
article  on  the  list.  And  so  almost  the  entire  mass  of 
the  people,  instinctively  and  persistently — perhaps 
unconsciously — are  using  every  effort  to  neutralize  the 
effect  of  protection  upon  every  article  and  interest 
with  which  they  are  not  specially  identified.  Here  is 
a  power,  silent,  but  perfectly  irresistible,  even  by 
law,  which  renders  it  practically  impossible  to  secure 
the  intended  benefit  of  protection  for  an_v  length  of 
time,  necessitating  frequent  alterations  and  additional 
safeguards  which  only  serve  to  increase  the  difficul- 
ties and  disarrangements  which  affect  trade.  Every 
business  transaction  is  thus  made  more  difficult  and 
more  expensive  without  any  corresponding  benefit  to 
the  great  mass  of  the  people. 

DILEMMA  PRESENTED   BY   PROTECTIONISTS. 

Interested  advocates  of  a  high  protective  pohcy 
together  with  many  who  are  deluded  by  their  so 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE  2$ 

phistries,  insist  upon  its  continuance  for  two  very 
different  and  irreconcilable  reasons. 

On  the  one  hand,  an  appeal  is  made  directly  to  our 
integrity  and  patriotism  on  the  ground  that  the  na- 
tion, owing  a  very  large  debt,  must  have  a  high  tar- 
iff to  ensure  the  necessary  revenue.  On  the  other 
hand,  our  national  sympathies  and  pride  are  invoked 
in  behalf  of  home  manufactures  in  order  that  we  may 
not  be  dependent  upon  Europe  for  such  fabrics  as 
can  be  made  here,  alleging  that  this  cannot  be  suc- 
cessfully done  except  under  a  high  protective  tariff. 

Now  here  is  a  dilemma  forced  upon  every  one  of 
us  by  these  unselfish  and  patriotic  protectionists,  in 
which  it  is  impossible  to  hold  both  horns  at  the  same 
time.  If  we  choose  the  one  by  which  government  is 
strengthened  with  revenue,  then  in  supplying  our 
wants  we  must  give  preference  to  imported  fabrics, 
it  being  from  these  revenue  is  obtained.  If  we  take 
the  other  and  endeavor  to  encourage  domestic  manu- 
factures in  buying  home-made  goods,  we  may  suc- 
ceed in  helping  the  manufacturers,  but  we  thereby 
deprive  the  government  of  the  revenue  which  it 
needs  and  ought  to  receive.  The  truth  is,  there  is  a 
direct  antagonism  between  the  interests  of  the  govern- 
ment and  those  of  the  protected  manufacturers.  The 
latter  nevertheless  claim  to  be  the  especial  friends  and 
supporters  of  the  government,  while  in  reality  the  im- 
porters and  consumers  of  foreign  goods  are  its  best 
and  most  reliable  supporters.  Those,  who  like  some  ol 
our  highest  government  officials,  advocate  the  so- 
called  American    System,  and  boast  of  their  higher 

2 


26  THE   TARIFF   SYSTEM 

.Americanism  in  using  goods  of  domestic  manufaclnrc, 
really  use  their  means  and  influence  to  promote  some 
private  interest,  and  to  deprive  the  government  of  its 
needed  revenue. 

PROTECTION   INJURES   MANUFACTURING   INDUSTRY. 

The  policy  of  protection  not  only  tends  to  diminish 
the  resources  of  government,  but  also  to  weaken 
and  injure  and  destroy  the  very  industries  which  it 
proposes  to  aid,  since  it  undermines  and  destroys  the 
element  of  self-reliance  which  is  absolutely  essential  to 
real  success  in  every  enterprise.  This  is  at  once 
recognized  when  applied  to  individuals,  where  there 
is  no  difficulty  in  predicting  which  of  any  given  num- 
ber will  be  successful,  those  who  are  generously  assist- 
ed by  friends  or  those  who  are  obliged  to  rely  upon 
their  own  efforts.  The  result  can  be  still  more  con 
fidently  predicted  of  those  who  are  assisted  by  gov 
ernment,  where  no  acknowledgment  is  required,  ano 
no  return  is  to  be  made.  Such  assistance  can  only 
enervate  and  injure,  hindering  as  it  does  the  proper 
development  of  the  spirit  of  self-help. 

The  effect  of  this  universal  principle  certainly 
cannot  be  any  less  enervating  and  injurious  in  its 
results  when  applied  to  companies  of  men  engaged 
in  manufacturing  ;  and  the  insiduous  but  inevitable 
effects  of  the  protective  policy  upon  those  industries 
which  have  always  enjoyed  it,  are  perfectly  mani- 
fest in  their  present  condition.  So  far  from  being 
independent  and  self-supporting,  as  tlrey  would  have 
been   if  left   to  their    own  resources   they  are   now 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE.  27 

more  dependent  upon  this  artificial  support  than  ever 
before.  And  we  are  justified  in  the  confident  predic- 
tion that  they  never  will  become  self-sustaining  until 
left  to  rely  upon  themselves  rather  than  on  legislative 
assistance.  To  confirm  this  view  we  need  but  com- 
pare the  present  with  the  past.  In  our  infancy  as  a 
nation,  eighty  years  ago,  in  order  to  encourage  these 
industries  a  duty  of  five  per  cent,  was  imppsed  upon 
cotton  and  woolen  goods,  and  seven  and  one-halj 
per  cent,  upon  iron  wares.  At  present  not  less  than 
ten  times  this  amount  of  security  is  demanded  as 
being  necessary  to  the  very  existence  of  these  indus- 
tries. More  than  one  hundred  years  ago  we  made 
and  exported  pig  iron  to  England,  and  that  country 
thought  herself  compelled  to  protect  her  iron  interests 
by  forbidding  its  importation  from  the  colonies.  Even 
when  our  first  tariff  was  adopted,  it  was  not  deemed 
necessary  to  include  pig  iron  in  the  list.  Since  then 
(in  1815)  the  Protectionists  attempted  to  make  this 
article  more  profitable  to  its  producers  by  a  tarifl 
tax,  but  this  has  so  weakened  this  important  and 
once  self-sustaining  trade,  or  has  so  stimulated  a 
principle  of  avarice  as  to  lead  those  engaged  in  it  to 
claim  that  it  cannot  exist  except  by  a  subsidy  of  seven 
dollars  per  ton  in  gold,  levied  upon  those  who  ccjn- 
sume  iron.  So  much  for  interests  which  are  fostered 
and  propped  up  by  protection.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  manufactures,  such  as  sewing  machines,  watches, 
agricultural  implements,  and  many  other  things  pe- 
culiarly American,  which  require  the  highest  de- 
gree of  skill  in  the  application  of  tools  specially  adapt- 


28  THE   TARIFF   SYSTEM 

ed  to  the  work,  and  in  regard  to  which  for  special 
reasons  protection  cannot  operate  effectively,  we  are 
takini;-  the  lead  of  the  world,  and  have  no  fear  of  com- 
petition from  any  quarter.  This  success,  however,  is 
attributed  by  our  leading  protectionist  organ,  in  a 
particular  reference  to  watch-making,  not  to  skill  in 
manufacturing  but  to  skillful  and  judicious  advertis- 
ing ! 

IN'JURIOUS    EFFECTS   ON   AGRICULTURE. 

While  a  long  series  of  Congressional  obstructions 
and  hindrances  has  increased  the  price  of  all  manu- 
factured goods,  the  effect  upon  our  staple  agricultural 
productions  has  been  in  the  contrary  direction. 
The  selfish  legislation  which  has  enhanced  the  cost 
of  all  we  make,  has  compelled  manufacturers  in  other 
countries  to  exercise  more  skill  and  greater  economy 
— to  develop  the  self-reliant  element — -and  thus  they 
are  still  able  to  send  their  wares  here,  besides  com- 
pletely shutting  us  out  from  the  markets  which  we 
once  almost  controlled.  Our  agricultural  products 
are  increasing  much  more  rapidly  than  a  home 
market  can  possibly  be  made  for  them  by  any  system 
of  legislation.  K  market  for  the  surplus  has  thus  be- 
come not  only  essential,  but  it  is  quite  as  important 
that  those  who  desire  this  surplus  shall  be  in  a  thriv- 
ing condition,  and  thus  enabled  to  pay  us  fair  prices 
for  it.  The  prices  obtained  abroad  for  our  surplus 
products  materirdly  affect  the  value  of  our  whole  pro- 
duction, and  thus  the  English  market  regulates  our 
prices  at  home.  Everywhere  throughout  the  country, 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE.  29 

where  the  farmer  sells  his  grain,  the  buyer  is  governed 
by  the  New  York  quotations,  and  these  in  ti-rn  by 
those  of  London.  Thus  the  effect  of  our  protective 
policy  is  to  increase  the  cost  of  goods  made  here,  and 
to  diminish  the  cost  of  making  goods  in  the  country 
where  we  sell  our  surplus.  It  increases  the  cost  of 
what  we  buy,  and  reduces  the  price  of  what  we  sell. 
We  deprecate  the  low  rates  of  wages  and  conse- 
quent poverty  among  the  working  classes  in  Europe, 
yet  pursue  a  policy  which  depresses  their  condition 
still  more,  and  lessens  their  ability  to  buy  and  con- 
sume what  we  are  compelled  to  sell  there. 

ASSUMED   BENEFITS   OF   PROTECTION. 

Exultant  protectionists  sometimes  point  to  places  in 
this  countr}'^  which  have  been  entirely  built  up  by 
manufactures,  as  an  evidence  of  the  wealth  and  pros- 
perity produced  by  tiiose  industries.  They  are  careful, 
however,  never  to  mention  the  fact  that  they  are  not 
self-sustaining ;  but  that  by  taxing  the  whole  people 
through  the  tariff  system,  this  wealth  is  drawn  there 
from  other  places  and  concentrated  in  these  fewer 
hands,  and  that  hard-working  people  far  away  who 
cannot  derive  any  possible  benefit  from  this  transfer 
and  concentration  of  wealth,  are  obliged  through  this 
vaunted  American  System  to  pay  higher  prices  for 
what  they  buy,  to  enrich  the  places  where  these  man- 
ufactures flourish. 

If  these  forced  contributions  were  only  levied  on 
those  who  derive  benefits  and  profits  from  these  man- 
ufacturing establishments;  from  those  whose  proper- 


30  THE   TARIFF   SYSTEM 

ty  is  increased  in  value,  and  who  receive  the  benefits 
of  this  home  market — if  these  alone  were  compelled  to 
bear  the  whole  expense  of  the  sj'stem,  there  would 
soon  be  a  change  in  their  estimate  of  the  value  of 
protection  to  domestic  industries  in  order  to  create 
home  markets.  They  would  soon  adopt  the  very  in- 
elegant, but  forcible  language  used  by  the  foremost 
newspaper  advocate  of  protection  in  this  country,  in 
reply  to  the  poor  freedmen  of  the  South  who  asked 
the  government  to  aid  (protect?)  them  a  little  longer, 
"  Root,  Hog  or  Die  !  " 

CENTRALIZED   POWER   IN   THE   REVENUE   SYSTEM. 

The  Tariff  System  has  been  so  thoroughly  per> 
verted  from  its  original  purpose  that  it  now  mainly 
promotes  private  interests  positively  antagonistic  to 
those  of  the  government,  and  its  administration  has 
become  fearfully  corrupt.  By  means  of  it  the  federal 
patronage  has  grown  to  enormous  and  dangerous  pro- 
portions, and  it  will  continue  to  grow  as  the  country 
grows,  while  the  system  is  continued.  When  to  this  is 
added  that  other  most  formidable  power,  our  Internal 
Revenue  System,  equally  corrupt  with  the  Tariff,  the 
patronage  in  the  control  of  the  gov-ernment  becomes 
an  almost  overpowering  means  of  acquiring  and  re- 
taining political  power  by  corrupt  and  unscrupulous 
men.  These  systems  require  the  services  of  many 
thousand  men  and  an  expenditure  of  many  millions 
of  dollars.  Besides  the  "  ins  "  who  hold  offices  there 
is  a  still  greater  number  of  "  outs  "  who  want  their 
places,  and  the  most  unscrupulous  means  are  used  to 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE.  3I 

nold  or  to  obtain  official  position.  The  men  who  live 
by  politics  are  incessantly  engaged  in  manoeuvring  the 
political  parties  to  which  they  respectively  belong. 
These  "ins"  and  " outs "  between  them,  control  all 
the  nominations  for  office  as  well  as  all  the  elections. 
It  matters  not  which  party  is  in  the  ascendant,  this  is 
the  .class  of  men  w-ho  secure  party  success,  and  must 
therefore  be  rewarded  in  the  distribution  of  the  feder- 
al patronage.  To  control  and  dispense  this  patronage 
is,  more  than  anything  else,  that  for  which  parties  con- 
tend. The  existence  of  such  a  gigantic,  overshadow- 
ing, centralized  power,  was  never  contemplated  by 
the  founders  of  our  government,  and  no  party  ought 
to  be  entrusted  with  it.  It  is  the  most  dangerous  el- 
ement with  which  the  people  have  to  contend,  and 
their  energies  cannot  too  earnestly  or  too  promptly 
be  directed  to  its  overthrow.  Any  proposed  reform 
in  our  national  affairs,  which  does  not  seek  to  remove 
entirely  this  vast  element  of  corruption,  cannot  be 
successful. 

WHY  THE   TARIFF  SYSTEM   WAS   CHOSEN. 

In  the  crude  and  unsettled  condition  of  public  af- 
fairs, when  Congress  first  acted  on  the  question  of 
revenue,  under  the  power  conferred  by  the  Constitu- 
tion, instead  of  adopting  the  method  of  direct  taxation 
by  apportionment  among  the  States  therein  provided 
for,  the  system  of  Import  Duties  was  unfortunately 
determined  on.  This  may  have  arisen  from  the  well- 
known  jealous}'  on  the  part  of  the  States,  lest  too 


32  THE   TARIFF   SYSTEM 

much  power  should  be  exercised  by  the  general  f^ov 
crnment.  Yet  doubts  seem  to  have  existed  whether 
a  Tariff  System  would  work  satisfactorily,  since  the 
first  tariff  was  limited  to  a  period  of  seven  years 
duration.  It  was  made  a  definite  policy  for  this  speci- 
fied time,  probably  to  create  a  basis  of  national  credit 
to  facilitate  the  negotiation  of  the  loans  needed  by 
the  Treasury,  as  European  countries  then  had  more 
confidence  in  such  methods  of  revenue  than  in  any 
other. 

If  the  system  of  direct  taxation  by  apportionment 
among  the  States  had  then  been  adopted,  the  collec- 
tions would  have  been  made  through  the  ordinary 
agencies  of  the  several  States,  each  in  its  own  way. 
The  corrupt  Custom  House  machinery  would  not 
have  been  developed.  Congress  would  have  been 
kept  from  sectional  legislation,  and  the  country  would 
no  doubt  have  been  spared  the  sad  sectional  strife 
which  has  lately  destroyed  so  much  useful  wealth 
and  so  many  valuable  lives. 

OBJECTIONS   TO  APPORTIONMENT  ANSWERED. 

There  are  not  wanting,  those  who  contend  that  the 
States,  under  an  apportionment  system  will  not  re- 
spond to  their  allotted  quota,  some  of  them  having 
once,  before  the  Constitution  was  adopted,  refused  to 
do  so.  But  who  can  believe  that  the  people  who  have 
so  recently  and  thoroughly  proved  their  faithfulness 
oy  submitting  to  every  form  of  taxation  almost  at  the 
same   time,  will  ever  again  permit  their  respective 


AISD   THE    CIVIL   SERVICE.  33 

States  to  refuse  their  just  quota  to  the  national  ex- 
penditures? Looking  -at  the  enormous  burdens  of 
taxation  quadrupled  through  the  tariff,  and  the  de- 
plorable official  corruption  created  by  that  system, 
who  can  doubt  that  the  people  would  now  prefer  to 
go  back  to  where  our  fathers  once  stood  and  make  a 
new  and  sounder  beginning  in  our  Revenue  System  ? 

If,  M'hen  our  revenue  system  was  first  adopted  it 
could  have  been  foreseen  what  incalculable  evils 
would  grow  out  of  the  tariff — from  the  perversion  of 
its  purpose  and  the  abuse  of  its  power,  from  the  sec- 
tional strife,  the  official  corruption,  and  the  dangerous 
federal  patronage  it  created — who  can  doubt  that  in 
those  days  of  at  least  comparative  purity.  Congress 
would  have  overwhelmingly  adopted  a  system  of  di- 
rect taxation  as  the  national  policy  ? 

Had  it  been  foreseen  that  the  effect  of  encouraging 
manufactures  through  the  tariff  taxation  would  only 
enervate  the  men  engaged  in  them,  and  make  them 
increasingly  dependent — 'that  after  eighty  years  of 
artificial  fostering,  these  industries  would  require  ten 
times  additional  stimulus  to  keep  them  ahve ;  who  can 
doubt  that  these  industries  would  have  been  left,  as 
individuals  are  left,  to  their  own  self-reliant  energy 
and  to  their  individual  self-interest,  which  is  the  ONLY 
TRULY  American  System,  the  only  true  method  of 
developing  manufacturing  or  any  other  form  of  indttstry  ? 

The  simple  system  of  unrestricted  freedom  in  trade 
and  commerce,  is  the  natural  and  right  condition,  and 
the  only  system  in  harmony  with  the  principles  of 
our  government.     Barriers  are  the  work  of  govern- 


34  THE   TARIFF   SYSTEM 

ments  and  should  never  be  interposed  except  from 
absolute  necessity — never  with  the  purpose  to  benefit 
ourselves  by  placing  others  at  a  disadvantage.  In- 
dividuals and  corporations  too  often  resort  to  such 
measures,  but  this  should  be  considered  unworthy  of 
a  great  government.  Even  if  a  tariff  could  be  framed 
that  would  secure  sufficient  revenue  from  articles 
which  we  do  not  produce,  the  rate  must  not  only  be 
very  high  but  the  temptation  to  fraud  and  adultera- 
tion in  qualit}'  of  goods  would  be  gieatly  increased. 
This,  for  several  years,  has  been  carried  on  to  such 
an  extent  in  the  article  of  coffee,  by  some  counted  one 
of  the  necessaries  of  life,  that  it  has  been  almost  im- 
possible to  obtain  it  pure,  and  the  same  experience 
is  now  threatened  in  regard  to  tea.  If  adulteration 
should  not  always  result,  still  the  price  must  be  so 
much  enhanced  as  to  diminish  the  consumption,  and 
thus  injure  our  exchanging  relations  with  the  coun- 
tries producing  these  articles.  We  may  add  to  this, 
that  any  such  business  will  necessarily  require  so 
much  more  capital  to  conduct  it,  that  it  becomes 
practically  a  monopoly  controlled  by  a  few  men. 

WHAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN. 

A  thoroughl}'-  anti-protective  policy  from  the 
first,  thoroughly  persevered  in,  might  have  prevent- 
ed much  of  the  legislative  favoritism,  much  of  the 
vast  federal  patronage  and  the  corruption  with 
which  the  country  is  cursed ;  but  so  many  phases  of 
special  legislation  have  been  developed  and  endorsed 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE.  35 

by  the  usages  under  the  tariflf  system,  that  no  effect- 
ive remedy  can  now  be  secured,  except  by  entirely 
abolishing-  our  present  method,  and  adopting  one 
which  will  be  uniform  and  permanent.  Besides,  a 
tariff  purely  anti-protective  will  not  produce  suffi- 
cient revenue  for  an  economical  administration  of 
government,  so  that  some  internal  revenue  system 
must  also  be  necessary.  This  will  require  the  con- 
tinuance of  all  the  machinery  now  m  use,  with  most 
01  Its  attendant  corruption,  extravagance,  and  other 
evils ;  and  these  means  of  securing  a  centralising 
newer  every  political  party  will  seek  to  perpetuate. 

WILL  THE   PEOPLE   OPPOSE   DIRECT  TAXATION  t 

jNIany  insist  that  the  people  at  large  are  opposed  to 
direct  taxation,  and  even  prefer  to  pay  a  much  largf^r 
amount  indirectly.  This  is  simply  equivalent  to 
asserting  that  the  people,  at  heart,  are  unfaithful  to 
our  institutions,  and  must  be  cJicated'vi\\.o  supporting 
them,  or  else  they  are  so  stupid  that,  like  children, 
they  must  be  hoodwinked  into  it.  This  cannot  be 
true  of  the  people.  It  is  only  the  pretence  of  those 
who  misrepresent  them  and  desire  that  a  corrupt 
and  extravagant  system  of  legislation  be  continued, 
for  their  own  selfish  ends.  Taxation  has,  indeed,  be- 
come odious  to  the  people,  and  may  yet  drive  them 
to  repudiation ;  but  it  has  been  made  odious  by  the 
multitude  of  indirect  methods  resorted  to  in  order 
to  filch  an  excessive  amount  to  be  used  for  nefarious 
and  corrupt  purposes.     The  people  will  readily  pay 


36  THE    TARIFF    SYSTEM 

for  supporting  a  purely  administered  government, 
when  confined  to  its  legitimate  sphere,  and  so  long 
as  those  who  are  entrusted  with  power  are  faithful 
to  their  trust  and  loyal  to  the  people,  whose  ser- 
vants only  they  are.  The  people  will  meet  promptly 
and  honestly  all  proper  obligations,  if  those  who 
exercise  legislative  powers  will  deal  honestly  with 
them.  But  they  may  be  educated  to  dishonesty  and 
repudiation  by  the  continuation,  and  that  only  for  a 
few  vears  long-er,  of  the  excessive  and  indirect  and 
multitudinous  forms  of  taxation  now  in  operation. 

Some  will  be  ready  to  urge,  in  order  to  avoid  any 
change,  that  the  basis  of  taxation,  through  State  ap- 
portionment, according  to  representation  and  popu- 
lation, is  unequal  and  unfair;  that  some  States  may 
thus  be  required  to  pay  too  large  a  proportion, 
which  they  will  not  submit  to.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  principles  of  our  national  government 
are  not  based  upon  property  but  upo7i  men,  and  its 
functions  should  be  exercised  alike  in  the  interest  of 
all.  From  this  view  of  the  question,  after  a  most 
thorough  discussion  of  it,  the  framers  of  the  Consti- 
tution unanimously  decided  in  favor  of  the  principle 
of  direct  taxation  in  proportion  to  population  and  rep- 
resentation, as  being  equitable  and  just.  Property  rep- 
resentation, in  other  relations,  may  be  right,  but  not  so 
in  the  general  government,  in  which  every  man  has 
a  right  to  an  equal  interest  and  voice.  Besides,  if 
the  apportionment  system  is  any  better  than  the 
present  system,  if  it  materially  reduces  taxes,  as 
it  must,  the  change  will  be  for  the  nation  a  great 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE.  37 

stride  in  the  right  direction,  while  the  question  of 
local  taxation  will  be  open  all  the  more  readily 
to  any  modification  or  improvement  which  experi- 
ence can  suggest. 

The  radical  change  which  we  propose  may  find 
objectors,  from  an  undue  apprehension  of  disas- 
ters resulting  from  an  immediate  or  sudden  re- 
modehng  of  our  system,  but  it  cannot  be  sudden 
or  immediate,  inasmuch  as  there  is  time  required 
to  educate  the  people,  and  then  to  secure  action 
through  Congress,  and  this  will  afford  ample  notice 
to  all  the  interests  to  be  affected. 

APPORTIONMENT   ILLUSTRATED. 

Let  us  illustrate  more  definitely  the  practical  work- 
ing of  an  apportionment  system,  showing  also  how 
largely  the  burdens  of  taxation  for  supporting  the 
government  would  fall  on  the  wealthier  States,  while 
the  proportion  of  each  State  would  be  much  less  than 
it  is  under  the  present  system. 

The  following  statement  has  been  carefully  con- 
densed from  the  government  statistics ;  the  revenue 
returns  being  for  the  year  1875,  and  the  population 
from  the  census  of  1870  : 

Am't  of  Revenue  from  Import  Duties     $157,167,722.35 
"  '■'  "     Internal  Excise     110,007,493.58 

$267,175,215.93 

Less  for  Refundings,  Drawbacks,  De- 
bentures, etc 5,311,602.84 


Net  Receipts 261,863,613.09 

Deduct  for  cost  of  collecting  Salaries. etc., 

Import..  7,926,507.65 

Internal.        4,2^9,442.71 

12,215,950.36 


Net  Revenue,  less  cost  of  collecting $249,647,662.73 


38 


THE   TARIFF   SYSTEM 


Here  is  a  net  total  from  these  two  sources  of 
$249,647,663.73,  costing  the  people  the  additional  sum 
of  $12,215,950.36  in  salaries  and  similar  expenses,  and 
employing  over  twenty  thousand  office-holders,  who 
seem  to  think  it  a  large  part  of  their  duty  to  manage 
the  machinery  of  politics.  This  is  without  saying  any- 
thing about  the  erection  and  maintenance  of  buildings 
at  the  four  hundred  and  ninety  customs  stations,  or  of 
other  expenditures  not  included  in  the  table,  the  ad- 
dition of  which  would  greatly  augment  this  exhibit. 

The  net  sum  which  was  realized  by  the  govern- 
ment amounts  to  a  little  less  than  $6.50  per  capita  on 
the  census  of  1870,  when  the  population  was  38,558,371 
— on  this  number  a  per  capita  tax  of  $6.50  w^ould 
amount  to  $250,629,411.  If  it  were  divided  among 
the  States  pro  rata  to  be  collected,  and  thereby  a  sav- 
ing of  more  than  twelve  millions  of  dollars  effected,  the 
portion  falling  upon  each  State  would  be  as  follows  : 


States  and  Territories. 


Population 


State  Tax  by  Ap- 
portionment at 
$6.50  per  capita. 


New  York 

2  Pennsvlvania... 

sjOhio..' 

4!lllinoi5 

5  Missouri 

6  Indiana 

7 1  Massachusetts.. 

8 1  Kentucky 

glTennessee 

10  Virginia 

ii]lo\va 

12  Georgia 

13  Michigan 

141  North  Carolina 

15  Wisconsin 

161  Alabama 


4.382,759 
3.521,951 
2,665,260 

2,539.891 
1,721,295 
1,680  637 

1.457-351 
1,321,011 
1,258,520 
1,225,163 
1,194,020 
1,184,109 
1,184,059 
1,071,361 
1,054,670 
996,992 


^28,487: 
22,892, 

17.324. 
16,509, 

10,924, 

9>472; 

8,586, 
8,180, 
7.963 
7.76I: 
7,696 
7,696; 
6,963, 
6,855, 
6,480 


933-50 
681.50 
190.00 
291.50 
417.50 
140.50 
781.50 
571-50 
380.00 
559- 50 

1 30.  GO 
708.50 
383-50 
846.50 
355-00 
44S.OO 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE. 


39 


States  and  Territories. 


New  Jersey...  , , . 

Mississippi 

Texas..  . .    

Maryland 

Louisiana 

South  Carolina.. 

Maine 

California 

Connecticut 

Arkansas 

West  Virginia.. . 

Minnesota 

Kansas 

Vermont 

New  Hampshire. 

Rhode  Island 

Florida 

Delaware 

Nebraska 

Oregon 

Nevada 


1  District  of  Columbia. 

2  New  Mexico 

3  Utah 

4  Colorado 

s'Washington 

6|  Montana 

7|Idaho 

8  Dakota 

9  Arizona 

lo  Wyoming 


Population 
1870. 


State  Tax  by  Ap- 
portionment at 
$6.50  per  capita. 


906,096 
827,922 

818,579 
780,894 
726,915 
705,606 
626,915 
560,247 

537.454 
484,471 
442,014 
439.706 
364,399 
330,551 
318,300 

217,353 
187,748 
125,015 
122,993 
90,923 
42,491 

131,700 

91.S74 
86,786 
39,S64 
23,955 
20.595 

14,999 
i4,iSi 

9,65s 
9,118 


$5,889. 
5.381, 
5.320 
5.075, 
4.724, 
4,586, 

4,074: 

3,641, 

3,493, 

3,149^ 

2,873, 

2,85s, 

2,368, 

2,148: 

2,o63, 

1,412, 

1,220. 

812, 

799, 

590, 

276, 


624.00 
493.00 
763-50 
811.00 
947-50 
439.00 
.947-50 
605.50 
451.00 
061.50 
091.00 
0S9.00 
593-50 
.581.50 
950.00 
794-50 
362.00 
597- 50 
454-50 
999.50 
191.50 


856,050.00 

597,181.00 

564,109.00 

259,116.00 

155.707-50 

133,867.50 

97,493-50 

92,176.50 

62,777.00 

59,267.00 


38,558,37ii$250,629,4ii.50 


The  statement  made  up  on  the  census  of  1870  show- 
ing that  $6.50  per  capitawould  have  been  more  than 
sufficient  in  1875,  it  is  safe  to  calculate  that,  on  the 
census  of  1880,  the  population  will  have  increased 
enough  to  reduce  the  per  capita  to  five  dollars.     This 


40  TIIK   TARIFF   SYSTEM 

for  an  average  fiimily  of  six  persons  would  be  thirty 
dollars  a  year.  Now  where  is  there  a  family  which, 
under  the  present  system,  is  not  subjected  to  n, 
much  larger  sum  than'  this?  There  is  scarcely  an 
article  of  food  or  clothing,  or  tools  or  farming  im- 
plements that  the  mechanic  or  farmer  buys  that  is 
not  increased  in  price  at  least  forty  per  cent,  through 
the  tariff. 

That  is,  on  every  hundred  dollars'  worth  which  he 
bu}-s,  at  least  forty  dollars  of  it  is  a  tax,  added  be- 
cause of  the  tariff.  There  is  not  an  article  of  manu- 
factured goods  of  any  kind  that  is  free  from  this  tax; 
the  lumber  in  a  house,  the  paint,  the  glass,  the  nails,  the 
screws,  the  furniture, — everything  is  taxed,  and  this 
too,  not  so  much  for  the  government  as  for  those  who 
make  these  things.  It  bears  with  peculiar  severity 
upon  the  farmer,  for  he  is  obliged  to  sell  his  farm  pro- 
ducts at  foreign  prices  and  buy  his  supplies  on  the 
tariff-increased  prices  of  the  home  market. 

The  amount  of  the  so-called  per  capita  tflx  would 
not  be  levied  on  and  collected  from  every  family  or 
individual  directly,  but  would  be  added  to  and  in- 
cluded in  the  amount  which  the  State  apportions  to, 
and  collects  from,  the  counties  in  the  ordinary  way. 
Of  course  the  annual  tax  bills  would  be  increased,  but 
the  annual  expenses  of  the  family  would  be  reduced 
more  than  enough  to  pay  the  difference. 

This  statement  only  shows  a  beginning  of  results 
which  may  be  expected  to  flow  from  a  dividing  of  the 
amount  among  the  States,  to  be  collected  by  them. 
The  economy  and  simplicity  should   alone  be   suffi- 


AND    THE   CIVIL   SERVICE.  4I 

cient  to  recommend  it,  the  government  would  be  re- 
leased from  those  heavy  expenses  which  the  compli- 
cated machinery  of  customs  and  excise  make  necessarj^, 
and  the  National  Treasury  would  receive  clean  sums 
in  bulk  from  the  State  Treasurers.  There  would  be  no 
additional  cost  to  the  States  for  collecting,  as  all  the 
machinery  exists  and  is  paid  for  by  the  States,  to  offi- 
cials who  are  not  appointed  by  the  government,  but  are 
chosen  by  the  people  themselves.  This  would  be  a 
strong  check  upon  the  centralizing  tendency  of  the 
general  government,  and  would  remove  from  national 
politics  a  very  large  body  of  office-holders  numbered 
by  thousands  connected  with  the  Import  and  Internal 
Revenue  Service.  What  this  means  it  is  scarcely 
necessary  to  suggest  to  any  intelligent  citizen.  It 
would  not  only  reform  the  Civil  Service  by  abolish- 
ing these  offices,  but  remove  from  the  political  arena 
the  number  of  office-holders  more  than  four  times  mul- 
tiplied, of  those  who,  in  both  parties,  are  anxious  to 
get  these  places  as  rewards  for  party  service,  and  are 
not  over-scrupulous  in  the  means  used  to  accomplish 
their  object. 

THE   PEOPLE   DEMAND   REFORM. 

The  oppressive  burdens  of  taxation  and  the  wide- 
spreading  official  corruption  are  arousing  the  people 
to  demand  reform  in  both  the  Revenue  System 
and  the  Civil  Service.  But  how  is  it  possible  to 
secure  these  reforms  so  absolutely  necessary,  while 
the  present  systems  are  continued  in  operation  ?  The 
tariff  has  never  been  exempt  from  the  tampering  offi- 


42  THE   TARIFF   SYSTEM 

ciousncss  of  Congress,  and  never  will  be  so  long  as 
special  legislation  can  be  purchased.  The  Civil  Ser- 
vice can  never  be  reformed  while  there  are  so  many- 
offices  to  be  filled,  and  so  many  ready  to  use  cor- 
rupt means  to  obtain  these  offices,  with  full  purpose 
to  make  them  remunerative,  no  matter  at  what 
expense  they  may  have  been  secured.  All  the  in- 
terests of  corrupt  office-holders,  and  all  the  ambition 
of  office-seekers  in  Congress  and  elsewhere,  are  thus 
directly  arrayed  against  these  reforms,  which  can 
only  be  accomplished  by  the  people  making  a  bold, 
determined,  uncompromising  effort  to  secure  a 
thorough  change  in  our  w^hole  revenue  system.  In 
this  way  only  can  thousands  of  offices  be  abolished, 
millions  of  dollars  now  spent  in  salaries  be  saved, 
and  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  corrupt  and 
dangerous  element  now  overshadowing  the  country 
be  destroyed. 

WHO  WILL  OPPOSE  REFORM. 

The  honest  and  patriotic  men  of  the  country  de- 
mand these  reforms, — men  w'ho  are  not  ambitious 
for  office,  and  who  prefer  the  welfare  of  the  country 
above  party  success.  There  is  a  majority  of  such  in 
each  of  the  existing  parties,  but  their  powder  is  en- 
tirely annulled  by  the  skill  of  the  leaders.  A  move- 
ment in  the  right  direction  is  sure  to  draw  this  ele- 
ment to  its  support.  Protectionists,  who  wish  to 
thrive  by  a  tax  on  other  interests ;  ambitious  men 
who  are  ready  to  use  almost  any  means  which  will 
secure   to   themselves    official    prominence ;    office- 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE.  43 

holders  and  office-seekers  who  wish  to  live  and  fat- 
ten on  corruption,  cannot  be  expected  to  show  any 
favor  to  such  a  movement.  They  will  probably 
attack  it  covertly  and  openly  in  every  way  to  pre- 
vent its  success.  But  all  who  really  desire  a  reduc- 
tion of  taxes  and  other  public  burdens  ;  all  who  de- 
sire an  economical  and  honestly  administered  gov- 
ernment ;  all  who  desire  reform  in  our  civil  service ; 
all  who  are  true  friends  to  domestic  manufactures, 
developed  and  sustained  through  self-reliant  energy, 
are  sure  to  give  their  earnest  support  to  such  a 
movement. 

ORIGINAL  FREE   TRADERS. 

There  are  many  persons  scattered  through  the 
country,  who  have  akvays  held  that  "  Free  Trade  and 
Direct  Taxation,"  is  the  true  national  policy  for  our 
government,  believing  it  not  only  far  more  economi- 
cal and  far  less  corrupting  than  any  tariff  system, 
but  also  more  in  harmony  with  the  principles  on 
which  our  government  is  founded.  These  especially 
can  be  relied  on  for  united  aid  and  support  Never 
before  has  there  been  such  a  combination  of  circum- 
stances caUing  for  the  promulgation  of  true  and 
sound  principles  with  so  promishig  a  prospect  of 
hearty  response  from  the  people,  and  such  hopeful 
assurances  of  success. 

There  are  many  thousands  of  the  people  who  be- 
lieve in  the  universal  brotherhood  of  man ;  who 
profess  to  believe  in  the  doctrine  of  dealing  with 
others  as  they  themselves  would  be  dealt  with  ;  who 


44  THE   TARIFF   SYSTEM 

acknowledge  the  obligation  to  "  preach  the  gospel  to 
every  creature"  by  sending  abroad  the  missionary  of 
the  Cross;  who  believe  in  a  time  coming  when  right- 
eousness and  peace  shall  prevail  in  all  the  earth.  It 
is  certain  that  the  breaking  away  of  all  selfish  bar- 
riers between  the  nations,  must  precede  the  incom- 
ing of  that  day.  Then  surely  the  appeal  which  we 
make  to  the  Christian  men  of  the  land,  for  coopera- 
tion in  harmony  with  their  faith,  will  not  be  un- 
heeded? Is  it  not  a  work  in  which  America  should 
take  the  lead?  We  have  been  held  up  as  an  example 
to  the  world  in  every  struggle  for  freedom.  Claiming 
to  have  secured  freedom  of  soil,  freedom  of  speech, 
freedom  of  labor,  freedom  of  men  ;  to  be  completely 
consistent  u^ith  our  principles,  we  must  secure  like 
freedom  in  exchanging  the  products  of  labor,  which 
is  the  necessary  complement  of  the  others.  Let  us, 
so  far  as  we  are  able,  emancipate  trade  and  commerce 
from  every  shackle,  and  throw  down  the  gauntlet  of 
unfettered  competition  to  all  the  world. 

BENEFI-CENCE   AND   COMMON   SENSE   IN   TRADE. 

Comfort  and  wealth  and  civilization  are  the  direct 
result  of  exchanging  the  surplus  productions  of  labor 
between  individuals  and  States  and  nations.  Farmers 
or  mechanics  or  artisans  do  not  promote  their  com- 
fort or  wealth  or  knowledge  by  keeping  all  that  they 
have  themselves  produced  or  acquired,  but  by  using 
their  surplus  as  a  purchasing  power  to  obtain  some- 
thing else  which  others  have  produced. 

It  is  therefore  essential  to  liberty  and  prog'ress  that 
men  should  be  free  to  exchange  productions — to  sell 
and  to  buy — in  any  market  which  they  or  their  agents 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE.  45 

can  reach ;  and  to  do  it  with  the  greatest  possible- 
facility,  without  interference  by  the  government. 

This  is  a  degree  of  freedom,  which,  with  all  our 
boasted  liberty,  the  people  of  this  country  have  not 
yet  attained.  We  arc  entitled  to  it,  and  do  not  think 
it  necessarily  a  difficult  work  to  accomplish.  "  Where 
there  is  a  will  there  is  a  way."  There  is  a  ivay ;  zue 
need  only  the  will. 

Let  common  sense  take  the  place  of  old  prejudices. 
Adopt  in  national  affairs  the  same  methods  of  doing 
business  as  are  universally  practiced  in  individual 
transactions.  Make  provision  for  suppopting  the  na- 
tional government  as  for  other  necessary  expenses 
in  State  or  county,  so  that  all  may  understand  what  it 
costs.  It  is  not  creditable  to  any  man  that  he  pre- 
fers to  be  ignorant  of  his  family  or  business  expenses  ; 
why  should  he  be  willing  to  be  deluded  or  hoodwinked 
in  regard  to  his  portion  of  national  expenses  ?  Igno- 
rance or  blindness  certainly  will  not  make  them  less. 
The  fearful  burdens  of  taxation,  the  profligacy,  the 
extravagance,  the  enormous  amount  of  national.  State 
and  county  debts  for  which  every  house  and  farm  in 
the  country  is  heavily  mortgaged,  is  traceable  directly 
to  this  prolific  source  of  evils.  Let  the  government 
expenses  be  paid  in  a  way  more  worthy  of  a  free  peo- 
ple, and  not  by  special  legislation,  which  greatly  in- 
creases the  cost  of  living,  and  makes  it  impossible  to 
know  how  mucJi  the  people  pay,  and  how  little  of  it 
reaches  the  national  treasury. 

Other  nations,  where  the  people  have  never  been 
taught  otherwise  than  to  allow  the  government  to 


46  THE   TARIFF   SYSTEM 

interfere  with  and  attempt  to  regulate  business  mat- 
ters;  where  they  do  not  understand  that  government 
cannot  possibly  help  some  without  doing  correspond- 
ing injury  to  others; — other  nations,  we  say,  may  be 
very  far  from  allowing  this  individual  or  commercial 
freedom,  but  the  earnest  and  cordial  responses  we 
are  receiving  from  all  parts  of  the  country  point  un- 
mistakably to  the  conclusion  that  our  people  are 
awaking  from  their  dreamy  indifference,  and  that  the 
time  is  close  at  hand  when  their  intelligent  common- 
sense  will  grapple  Avith  this  difficulty,  and  break  at 
once  and  forever  the  shackles  with  which  prejudice 
and  selfish  legislation  have  confined  and  oppressed 
the  agricultural  and  other  enriching  industries  of  the 
nation. 

Our  industries  need  and  must  have  freedom  in 
using-  the  markets  of  the  world  in  which  to  sell  and 
to  buy.  If  other  nations  will  not  reciprocate  by  re- 
moving the  barriers  which  they  have  erected,  zve  can 
overcome  at  least  one-half  the  obstacles  by  removing 
those  zvhich  tve  have  put  in  the  tuay. 

This  is  not  a  party  question.  Existing  political 
parties  have  not  the  moral  quality  or  courage  to  do 
anything  which  threatens  to  reduce  the  office-holding 
patronage  of  the  government — on  this,  more  than 
anything  else,  do  they  rely  for  success.  It  is  for  the 
people  to  strike  at  the  very  root  of  party  corruption 
by  abolishing  a  multitude  of  needless  offices  and  dis- 
missing an  army  of  expensive,  meddling  office-holders, 
and  consent  to  support  the  government  in  a  more 
simple,  direct  and  economical  manner. 


AND   THE   CIVIL   SERVICE.  47 

The  present  is  a  peculiarly  appropriate  time  for 
inaugurating  such  a  movement.  Nations  are  being 
drawn  closer  together.  Steam  and  electricity  are 
almost  annihilating  space  and  time.  Other  barriers 
are  rapidly  disappearing.  The  signs  of  the  times  all 
point  in  this  direction.  The  triumph  of  peace  in  the 
recent  treaty  between  England  and  America  fore- 
shadows the  extinction  of  national  jealousies.  What 
nobler  object  can  be  presented  to  those  who  wish 
to  promote  the  highest  welfare  of  the  country  and 
of  the  world  ?  This  work  will  be  accomplished 
sooner  or  later,  and  some  one  country  must  begin  it. 
Nothing  can  be  more  worthy  the  fame  of  America 
and  her  position  among  the  nations,  than  to  take  the 
lead  in  a  movement,  which  more  than  any  other,  will 
promote  peace  and  good-will  among  the  nations  of 
the  world. 


COMMENDATORY. 

WM.   LLOYD   GARRISON,  in    1 868. 

NATiOJfAii  selfishness  is  as  much  more  to  be  deprecated 
than  personal  greed,  as  aggregated  millions  are  of  more  con- 
sequence than  the  Individual.  Who  shall  rightfully  inter- 
pose barriers  to  the  unobstructed  interchange  of  the  results 
of  human  industry,  invention  and  skill?  Assuming  that  the 
interests  of  all  nations  are  the  interests  of  each,  and  each  ol 
all,  I  know  not  where  the  lines  are  to  be  drawn.  If  Japan 
and  China  are  getting  sufficiently  enlightened  to  abandon 
their  exclusiveness  as  against  commercial  interchange  with 
the  rest  of  mankind,  surely  the  United  States  should  take 
the  lead  in  the  adoption  of  a  Free  Trade  pohcy,  which,  while 
founded  upon  world-wide  considerations,  cannot  fail  to  be 
twice  blessed — "blessing  him  who  gives  and  him  who  takes," 
in  the  spirit  of  mutual  reciprocity  and  good  will. 


HENRY  WARD  BEECHER,  in  "  The  Christian  Union'' 

Freedom  is  the  breath  of  all  true  prosperity.  Freedom 
in  politics  makes  strong  states.  Freedom  in  religion  pro- 
duces  pure  and  intelhgent  churches.  Freedom  of  trade 
makes  a  sound  commerce.  Freedom  of  labor — freedom  of 
the  individual  to  emigrate,  to  choose  his  own  market,  to 
make  his  own  bargains,  to  augment  his  own  wages  by  aug- 
menting the  value  of  his  own  labor — is  indispensable  to  the 
permanent  prosperity  of  the  great  community  of  working 
men. 


COMMENDATORY. 

From  ''a  run  through  EUROPE,"  by  E.  C.  BENEDICT. 

The  robbers  of  the  Rhine  are  dead,  and  their  castles  are 
in  ruins,  and  we  are  sailing  down  between  their  graves. 
The  robbers  of  the  Rhine!  How  easy  it  is  to  call  names! 
They  only  levied  duties  on  the  commerce  that  passed  that 
way ;  their  castles  were  custom-houses.  There  were  thirty- 
two  of  them  in  the  middle  ages.  They  were  collectors,  and 
had  their  night  inspectors,  and  tide  waiters,  and  revenue 
cutters,  which  they  wore  at  their  sides  in  a  scabbard ;  their 
duties  were  ad-valorem,  or  specific  by  a  sliding  scale,  always 
sliding  upward,  or  in  any  direction  in  which  they  would  pro- 
duce the  most  revenue  ;  theirs  was  stnctly  a  revenue  tariff. 
They  were  robbers  ;  what  are  we  who  seize  by  the  throat 
figuratively  every  merchant  that  brings  us  what  we  want,  and 
wiU  not  let  his  goods  pass  till  he  has  paid  us  a  tribute  of 
often  one-third  their  value. 

GERRIT  SMITH,    1 86/. 

With  the  high  tariff  men  I  am  for  promoting  ' '  American 
industry;"  and  with  them  I  am  for  bringing  the  producer 
and  consumer  as  near  together  as  practicable.  Nevertheless, 
I  am  an  absolute  free-trader.  I  would  have  no  custom-house 
on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Never  will  government  be  admin- 
istered honestly  and  frugally  until  the  cost  of  administering 
it  is  paid  by  direct  taxation.  And  never  will  government  be 
confined  within  its  proper  hmits  until  its  sole  office  shall  be 
to  protect  persons  and  property. 


LETTER  FROM   REV.   T.   S.   HASTINGS,   D.  D. 

New  York,  Ilarch  19,  1872. 
Mr.  a.  L.  E.vrle. 

My  Dear  Friend  : — I  have  read  your  tract  on  "Free  Trade" 
with  care  and  Avith  much  interest.  It  has  converted  me. 
Educated  a  protectionist,  politically  and  socially,  I  have 
boon  gradually  losing  confidence  in  my  old  convictions,  as 
found  them  conflicting  with  those  broad  moral  views  of  the 
oneness  of  humanity  which  the  Gospel  inculcates;  and  now 
your  tract  has  broken  the  last  tie  that  held  me  to  my  early 
opinions. 

I  am  most  happy  to  acknowledge  myself  as  having  become 
a  "free  trader"  by  the  tuition  of  one  of  my  earliest,  best 
and  truest  friends. 

Of  course  I  think  your  statements  clear,  strong  and  con- 
vincing, and  cheerfully  commend  them  to  the  earnest  atten- 
tion of  others.  Very  cordially  yours, 

Thomas  S.  Hastings. 


LETTER  FROM  CHARLES  A.  GURLET,  ESQ. 

Pulaski,  N.  Y.,  Ifay  2d,  1872. 

Dear  Sir: — The  pamphlet  so  ably  advocating  Free  Trade. 
is  clear,  logical,  sound,  aud  must  commend  itself,  in  all 
its  main  features,  to  every  unprejudiced  patriot  throughout 
our  common  country.  Its  aim  is  simply  even-handed  justice 
to  all  in  substitution  for  a  system  that  works  evil  continu- 
ally, protecting  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many. 

All  unjust  statutes,  whether  State  or  National,  legitimately 
weaken  the  respect  for  a  government,  origLaattng  the  sowing 
seeds  of  Communism,  riot  and  disorder. 

So  long  as  machinery  for  raising  money  out  of  the  savings 
of  the  people  can  be  both  unseen  and  effective,  so  long  will 
lavish  and  unnecessary  appropriations  be  made,  and  no 
cure  so  effectual,  I  apprehend,  can  be  found  as  to  have  the 
States  collect  each  its  share  of  taxes.  This  will  strengthen 
the  interest  in,  and  watchfulness  over  the  perpetuity  of  our 
government.  Respectfully  yours, 

CHARLES  A.  GURLEY. 

ABiL  L.  Earle,  Esq.,  New  York. 


Fi-om  N.  Y.  Evening  Post,  March  25,  1872. 

Free  trade  is  only  one  of  the  many  forms  of  unrestrict- 
ed human  action  Avhich  poets,  philosophers  and  the  common 
people  worship  under  the  name  of  liberty,  and,  like  freedom 
of  thought,  freedom  of  speech,  freedom  of  association,  free- 
dom of  religious  observance,  is  an  imprescriptible  right  of 
man ;  which  guaranties  his  manhood  and  assures  the  num- 
berless blessings  of  a  high  and  beneflcient  civilization. 

Free  trade  but  expresses  the  world-old  and  universal  prac- 
tice of  all  rational  beings  when  it  asserts — which  is  all  it  as- 
serts— that  it  is  better  for  men  to  procure  the  commodities 
they  need  by  exchange  than  by  production,  when  the  ex- 
change is  cheaper  than  the  production.  Go  into  our  fields, 
our  workshops,  our  mills,  our  stores,  our  shipping-houses,  and 
every  practical  man  there  will  tell  you  that  he  would  be  a 
fool  who  would  waste  ten  hours'  labor  in  producing  for  him- 
self what  he  might  get  from  another  in  exchange  for  six 
hours'  labor.  Every  individual  of  our  forty  millions  of  peo- 
ple, in  his  relations  with  other  individuals,  acts  upon  this 
principle;  every  family  in  our  ten  millions  of  families,  in  its 
relation  to  other  famiUes,  acts  upon  this  principle;  every 
township  of  our  many  thousand  townships,  in  its  relation  to 
other  townships,  acts  upon  this  principle ;  every  state  of  our 
thirty-eight  states  and  nine  territories,  in  its  relation  to 
other  states  and  territories,  acts  upon  this  principle ;  and  yet 
the  principle  is  pronounced  a  heresy,  and  the  application  of 
it  to  that  larger  agglomeration  of  men  called  the  nation  is  re 
sisted  as  if  it  were  something  new,  unprecedented,  dangerous 
and  awful !  What  the  individuals  of  every  civilized  country 
all  do,  what  the  families  of  every  ci\'ilized  society  all  do,  wliat 
the  towns  and  cities  and  states  and  provinces  of  every  civil- 
ized society  all  do,  nations  may  not  do,  as  if  nations  were 
more  mysterious  and  inscrutable  entities,  differing  from 
every  other  aggregate  ol  men. 


Sfi;a,s«o.« 


,^JSRARY 


''^ oorz7««ill 


Mc/ury 


1 


t^ 


